THE MISSIONARY HEROES 
OF AFRICA 

J. H. MORRISON, M.A. 



THE 

MISSIONARY HEROES 

OF AFRICA 



y H r BY 

Jc H. MORRISON, M.A. 

Author of "Streams in the Desert," "On the 
Trail of the Pioneers," etc 




NEW ^MT YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 






COPYRIGHT, 1922, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA. I 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



m 16 1322 o 



CI A 6 9 2 3 9 

/VU3 f 



TO 

THE UNNAMED HEROES 

WHO HAVE GIVEN THEIR LIVES 
FOR THE REDEMPTION OF AFRICA 



PREFACE 

It is no easy task to determine what names should 
stand in the front rank of the Missionary Heroes of 
Africa. In making his selection the present writer has 
at least the consolation of believing that while many, 
doubtless, would desire some honored name to be 
added^ few would wish any name on the list to be 
displaced. 

The following sketches are offered in the hope that, 
brief and imperfect as they are, they may serve to 
communicate some spark of that divine fire which 
burns in all heroic lives, and nowhere clearer than in 
the lives of Christlike and Apostolic men. In the 
hope, also, that they may aid the imagination in form- 
ing some picture of the marvelously varied and roman- 
tic scenery of the African mission field. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER I : THE DARK CONTINENT BE- 
FORE THE DAWN 15 

i: MOHAMMEDAN AFRICA 1 5 

Ii: PAGAN AFRICA . l6 

III! THE HAND OF EUROPE ..... 22 

IV : THE COMING OF THE MISSIONARY . . 2$ 



CHAPTER II: ROBERT MOFFAT, MIS 
SIONARY PIONEER . . . 

i: A SCOTS GARDENER . 

II*. THE INFANT COLONY 

Hi: TAMING A FREEBOOTER . 

IV : THE ROMANCE OF KURUMAN 

V: THE MATABELE 

VI : MOFFAT AND LIVINGSTONE 

VII : FAREWELL TO KURUMAN 

VIII : A MISSIONARY TO THE LAST 



28 
28 
31 
33 

37 
4i 
44 
49 
5i 



CHAPTER III: DAVID LIVINGSTONE, 
MISSIONARY EXPLORER . 



II BLANTYRE MILL . 

II! THE VALLEY OF MABOTSA 

Hi: THE ROAD TO THE NORTH 

IV ! CROSSING THE CONTINENT 

V: DISCOURAGED AND LIONISED 
ix 



54 
54 
56 
59 
64 
72 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER III [Continued] 

VI : FIVE YEARS ON THE ZAMBESI 
VII : THE SLAVE TRADE 
VIII : SEVEN YEARS OF WANDERING 

STANLEY 

THE LONG LAST MILE 

HOME 



ix : 

x: 

xi : 



CHAPTER IV: JOHN MACKENZIE 
SIONARY STATESMAN . . 



i: THE ELGIN APPRENTICE . 

II I THE RESOLVED MAN . 

III! FOLLOWING UP LIVINGSTONE 

IV : THE MAKOLOLO DISASTER 

v: in khama's country . 



MIS- 



VI : WHEN BLACK MEETS WHITE 
VII : THE BATTLE FOR BECHUANALAND 

viii : "among god's little ones, content' 



PAGE 

74 

78 

79 

83 

86 

87 



90 

90 
92 

94 

95 

99 

106 

108 

112 



CHAPTER V: STEWART OF LOVEDALE 

1 : a son of the disruption . 

ii : with livingstone on the zambesi 

hi: the builder of lovedale . 

iv : the spirit of the fingoes 

v: the birth of livingstonia 

vi : the triumph of lovedale 

vii : the founding of kikuyu . 

viii: "without were fightings" 

ix : "god is not dead" . 



117 

117 
119 
123 
128 
130 
132 
137 

138 

141 



CONTENTS 



XI 



CHAPTER VI: LAWS OF LIVINGSTONIA 

I! HENRY DRUMMOND'S HERO . 

II I DEDICATED FROM BIRTH . 

Ill I UP THE ZAMBESI TO LAKE NYASA 

IV : THE BEACON AT CAPE MACLEAR 

V : OVER THE GRAVES OF THE FALLEN 

VI : TOIL AND TRIAL AT BANDAWE . 

VII : A MARVELOUS TRANSFORMATION 

VIII : THE CROWNING YEARS . 

IX : THE LEGACIES OF WAR . 



CHAPTER VII : MACKAY OF UGANDA 



i: STANLEYS LETTER 

II I A MISSIONARY ENGINEER 

in: "poor moses" .... 

IV : INTO THE LION'S MOUTH 

V : FOR THE SOUL OF A KING . 

vi : "great news" .... 

VII : A ROYAL FUNERAL 

VIII : MWANGA, THE PERSECUTOR . 

ix : "the universe is god's" 

x: "the best missionary since 

stone" 



LIVING 



PAGE 

142 
142 

143 
145 
147 
152 
153 
158 

163 
168 

171 
171 

172 

175 

176 

179 
182 
184 
186 

190 

193 



CHAPTER VIII: GRENFELL OF THE 

CONGO 197 

I : FROM CORNWALL TO THE CAMEROONS . I97 

Ii: THE GIANT CONGO 202 

in : pioneering in the Peace .... 204 



xii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VIII [Continued] TAGK 

IV I THE BELGIAN OCTOPUS 209 

V I SORROWS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE . . . 212 

VI I THE JOY OP HARVEST 215 

vii : "the death of Tata finished" . . 218 

CHAPTER IX: COILLARD OF THE ZAM- 
BESI , . . 219 

1: a son of the huguenots .... 219 

ii: life in basutoland 221 

Hi: WAR AND EXILE . 223 

IV : REVIVAL . 224 

v: "with such an escort we can go 

anywhere" 226 

vi : among the barotsi 232 

VII: AFRICAN ROYALTY ....... 234 

viii : "that delicious rain" 236 

IX : THE WEDGE OF THE GOSPEL .... 237 

x: rest 241 

CHAPTER X: MARY SLESSOR OF CALA- 
BAR 243 

i: AN EXTRAORDINARY FACTORY LASSIE . 243 

Ii: IN DARK CALABAR 247 

in : "blessed with an efik mouth" . . 250 

iv : settled among savages .... 253 

v: essential justice 258 

vi : the church of christ in okoyong 2do 

vii : the pioneer of the enyong creek . 262 
viii: "the happiest woman in all the 

world" 265 



THE MISSIONARY HEROES 
OF AFRICA 




MAP OF AFRICA 

Showing the missionary stations where these 
heroes of African missions labored. 



THE MISSIONARY HEROES 
OF AFRICA 

CHAPTER I 

THE DARK CONTINENT BEFORE THE DAWN 

All Gaul, as Caesar says, is divided into three parts. 
All Africa may be divided into two. These are the 
Northern and the Southern halves of the continent, 
which are found to differ widely both iri history and 
in religion. 

I: Mohammedan Africa * 

From the earliest times North Africa played 
a conspicuous part in the ancient world which centred 
round the Mediterranean. The names of Egypt 
and Carthage are a sufficient reminder to us of that. 
Accordingly it was among the first countries to be 
evangelised, and in the early Christian centuries the 
vigorous Churches of North Africa produced men 
like Augustine and Tertullian, Clement and Origen. 
Of these ancient churches only a wretched remnant 
survives in Abyssinia. 

In the seventh century the tide of Islam, which 
flowed north over the churches of Asia, flowed also 

15 



16 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

westward and swept away the Christianity of North 
Africa. Since then the Mohammedan faith has more 
than maintained its ground in Africa. It has grad- 
ually spread southward, down the east coast to Zan- 
zibar, across the Sudan to the Niger and the Gulf of 
Guinea, until to-day it dominates half the continent. 
No doubt it is fitted to give to savage tribes a certain 
moral and religious uplift, but its cast iron system 
blocks all farther progress and makes its converts less 
accessible to the Gospel than before. In Mohammedan 
Africa Christian missions have made little progress 
to speak of, and our concern is therefore with pagan 
Africa which forms the central and southern half of the 
continent. It must not be forgotten, however, that 
Islam is still a living and missionary force, and part 
of the urgency of African evangelisation lies in this, 
that if the advance of the Cross be delayed the Crescent 
may take possession of the whole field. 

II : Pagan Africa 

In the 15 th century bold voyagers had begun to 
venture down the west coast, and before the close of 
the century they had rounded the Cape of Good Hope. 
From this time forward an increasing volume of trade 
was carried on with Africa, and settlements were 
planted along the coasts, west, south and east. Noth- 
ing, however, was known as yet of the interior, which 
remained a blank on the map till the 19th century. 
It was vaguely conceived as a vast and inhospitable 
desert. Only through the travels of David Living- 
stone and other explorers were its natural features, its 



THE DARK CONTINENT BEFORE DAWN 17 

lakes and river systems, made known to the world. 
It was then discovered that the interior of Africa con- 
sists of a vast, undulating plateau, having a climate 
very different from that of the low, swampy coast- 
land, much of it very fertile, much of it suitable for 
European colonisation. 

Pagan Africa is mainly inhabited by two races of 
coloured people, the Negroes and the Bantus. Besides 
these another race may be mentioned, though numeri- 
cally insignificant, namely the Hottentots and Bushmen. 
These lived in the neighbourhood of Cape Town and 
the districts to the north, consequently they figure 
somewhat prominently in early colonial and missionary 
history. Probably they are a remnant of the aboriginal 
inhabitants of Africa who have been driven south by 
the incoming of stronger tribes. The Bushmen are 
almost if not quite extinct. They were pigmies with 
light coloured skin, and in their habits pure nomads. 
Wondering continually about, trapping game, carry- 
ing off cattle, and shooting man and beast with their 
poisoned arrows, they were regarded by colonists and 
natives alike, as vermin to be exterminated. Their kins- 
men, the Hottentots, were more settled in their habits, 
and have gradually become intermingled with other 
tribes. It is undoubtedly from the Bushmen and Hot- 
tentot language that certain of the southern Bantu tribes 
have borrowed those curious little explosives in speech, 
common known as "Kafir clicks." 

Of the two great races, the Negroes inhabit the 
north of Central Africa from the Sahara to nearly 
the Equator, and from the Nile valley westward to 
the Gulf of Guinea and the regions of the Niger. To 



18 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

this race belong such numerous and powerful peoples 
as the Sudanese, the Hausas, etc. The Bantu race, 
greatest of all the African peoples, occupies practically 
the whole of South Africa up to the Equator and 
five degrees beyond it. It includes among its tribes all 
the names most familiar in South African history — 
Kafir, Zulu, Matabele, Basuto, Bechuana. North of 
the Zambesi it embraces all the peoples from Barotsi- 
land to Uganda. Its three hundred languages and 
dialects have a close affinity, being all built on what is 
called a syntax of euphony, according to which the 
sound of the ruling word pervades the sentence. 
Roughly it is as if in English, instead of saying, "Men 
(women, children) go to church," we should say, 
"Men me-go me-church y Women we-go we-church, 
Children chi-go chi-church." The Bantu tribes were 
comparatively late arrivals in Africa and their war- 
like migrations lasted till well on in the nineteenth cen- 
tury. In colour they are dark brown rather than black, 
and many have sharp, finely chiselled features. In this 
connection it may be remarked that the variety of 
features and of facial expression among Africans 
generally, both Negro and Bantu, is as great as among 
Europeans. The typical representation of the negro 
face is as much a caricature as the portly John Bull or 
the lanky Uncle Sam. 

The religion of pagan Africa takes the form of 
Fetichism, which is rather a system of vague and 
gloomy superstitions than a body of definite religious 
beliefs. The African feels himself to be surrounded by 
a world of spirits, malignant and terrifying. These 
spirits may reside in any object, animate or inanimate, 



THE DARK CONTINENT BEFORE DAWN 19 

they may enter and take possession of a human being. 
They have practically an unlimited power of working 
deadly mischief on every hand. The African is like 
a superstitious man walking along a dark road, who 
feels that a sheeted ghost may start from every bush, 
and knows not at what moment he may find himself 
in the grip of clammy hands. It is not to be wondered 
at that men in this condition are driven crazy with 
fear, swept away at times with wild panic, and ready 
to purchase safety by the most dreadful rites and sac- 
rifices. 

Hence arises the power of the witch doctor. He 
alone has knowledge of the spirit world. He alone 
can "smell out" the spirits, can appease them or drive 
them off. His commands, however terrible, must be 
obeyed. There is no help for it, unless one is prepared 
to deliver one's self over to still more awful, because 
invisible, terrors. Doubtless the witch doctors have 
been more or less sincere in their self-delusions, but 
they have often abused their dread powers for private 
ends, of self interest or of revenge. Suspected persons 
were made to undergo an ordeal by poison, those who 
survived being accounted innocent, those who died, 
guilty. This ordeal was applied not merely to single 
individuals but sometimes to whole villages at once. 
How terrific the power of the witch doctor was may 
be gathered from the fact that in 1856 the Kafirs were 
persuaded to destroy all their cattle, thus reducing 
themselves to abject starvation, in the hope that on a 
certain day countless herds would rise from the dead, 
and usher in an African millenium. 

In some parts of Africa cannibalism was practised, 



20 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

though not to any great extent. Infanticide was more 
widely prevalent, and twins especially, being regarded 
by some tribes as monstrosities, were cast out to die. 
Cruel and bloody funeral rites often followed the 
death of a chief. In order that his spirit might be 
suitably attended in the underworld, numbers of his 
slaves were put to death. In some cases his wives 
were buried alive in the grave with him. 

Repulsive as these rites and practices of paganism 
are, — so repulsive that the worst cannot be told — yet 
it will invariably be found that they are not the product 
of sheer, wanton deviltry, but that there is some 
serious thought, however blinded, underlying them, 
and some serious intention, however gross, prompting 
them. It would also be a grave mistake to picture the 
moral and social life of the African as a condition of 
unrelieved darkness. There are laws of friendship 
and hospitality, standards of decency and respect- 
ability, which are as strictly observed as among other 
nations, the wisdom of the fathers, such as it is, — 
and some of it is not contemptible — is carefully passed 
on to the children, and there is always to be found 
some degree of that natural affection and humanity 
without which social life would be impossible. 

Yet when every allowance is made it is a dark and 
pitiful picture that remains. A false idea of God 
distorts all human thought and shrouds this mortal life 
in universal gloom. Instead of a kindly Providence 
above there is the haunting presence of devils ; instead 
of a divine, redeeming love there is a devilish anger 
to be appeased and devilish cruelty to be satisfied with 
blood; instead of a Heavenly Father to whom His 



THE DARK CONTINENT BEFORE DAWN 21 

children can look with confidence for help, there are 
spirit forces embattled round a man, against whose 
demonic energy he must pit his puny strength, and 
from whom he can hope to wring a gift only by paying 
some terrible price. "Paganism," writes Dr. Stewart, 
"is a terrible fate spiritually, and an oppressive power 
under which to live. To all the ills of life it adds the 
constant terrors of a world unseen, whose agents are 
ever actively interfering with human affairs, and from, 
which there is no escape. . . . The darkest picture is 
not overdrawn. The poorness and hardness, narrow- 
ness and joylessness of human existence in paganism, 
in Central Africa at least, must be seen to be under- 
stood/' More than ioo millions of the people of 
Africa live under this blight. 

Opponents of missions have at times amused them- 
selves with fanciful pictures of the natural state of 
the heathen world, a state of sweet innocence and 
peace, which it were cruelty to disturb. No such state 
ever existed in Africa. Even before the incoming of 
the white race Africa was continually the scene of 
bloody wars and revolutions. The tribal chief was 
often a cruel, bloodthirsty and licentious tyrant who 
ate up his people. Neighbouring tribes, instead of liv- 
ing peacefully side by side, were usually at war. From 
time to time vast convulsions took place, when some 
barbarous tribe suddenly burst into activity like a 
volcano, and spread ruin far and wide. The Zulus 
are a notable instance of this. About the beginning 
of the nineteenth century they were ruled by a great 
chief, Chaka, who has not unfitly been called the 
Napoleon of South Africa. He welded his warriors 



22 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

together by an iron military discipline, and sent out 
army after army to plunder and devastate. It has 
been estimated that at least a million human beings 
were thus wantonly exterminated. Even the flying 
splinters of Chaka's armies were formidable. Of 
these the best known are the Matabele who laid waste 
Southern Rhodesia, the Mantiti who, after threaten- 
ing Cape Colony, streamed away to the northwest and 
conquered the tribes of the upper Zambesi, and the 
Angoni who became the terror of Nyasaland. Such 
was heathen life in Africa. 

Ill : The Hand of Europe 

It cannot be denied, however, that contact with 
Europe brought upon Africa new and vast evils. Of 
these the greatest and most indefensible was the slave 
trade. It began shortly after the discovery of America. 
The miserable Indians were being rapidly extermi- 
nated under the tyranny of Spain, and the demand 
for labour became more pressing. In these circum- 
stances the west coast of Africa became the recruit- 
ing ground for the plantations of the New World. 
The traffic from the first was, confessedly, an outrage 
on humanity, but so enormously profitable did it prove 
to be that all religious scruples and moral considera- 
tions were swept aside. Portugal and Spain led the 
way, but soon England outstripped them, and at one 
time she had nearly 200 vessels engaged exclusively 
in the trade. One company alone was chartered to 
supply 30,000 slaves annually to the West Indies. In 
this way millions of the people of Africa were trans- 



THE DARK CONTINENT BEFORE DAWN 23 

ported across the Atlantic and millions more were 
cruelly done to death. The slavetraders harried the 
west coast from Cape Verde and round the Gulf of 
Guinea to the Congo. They burned villages and kid- 
napped the inhabitants, they encouraged intertribal 
wars and bought the prisoners, they planted trading 
stations along the coast where guns and gin were 
exchanged for human beings, they organised slave 
hunting in the interior. Meantime a similar stream 
of Africa's lifeblood was pouring out through the 
gates of the east coast to supply the slave markets of 
Asia. This continued long after the Trans-Atlantic 
traffic was suppressed. Indeed the stream, though 
now greatly diminished, has not yet entirely ceased to 
flow. In Livingstone's day it was running full flood. 
Populous regions round Lake Nyasa were being dev- 
astated, the forest paths leading to the coast were filled 
with strings of fettered captives, and along the line 
of march were strewn the skeletons of those who had 
fallen. Gradually the conscience of Christendom 
awoke, and the nineteenth century saw the practical 
extinction of this inhuman traffic. 

The history of European colonisation in Africa 
runs back over four hundred years. By the sixteenth 
century the Portuguese were firmly settled on both 
the east and west coasts. The old grey castle of 
Mozambique was built by Albuquerque in 1508, and 
St. Paul de Loanda was founded seventy years later. 
These tropical regions, however, can never become a 
white man's country, and the Portuguese settlements 
have too often shown a sad record of physical and 
moral degeneration. Yet Portugal has conferred 



24 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

important benefits on Africa by the introduction into 
the country of various new articles of food, such 
as oranges and lemons, maize and sweet potatoes, 
and many other vegetables. As has been said, "Take 
away from the African's food all that the Portuguese 
have introduced and he would be left very poorly sup- 
plied with the necessaries of life." 

The real colonisation of Africa began at Cape Town 
and proceeded northwards. In the reign of James I, 
two British admirals, Shillinge and Fitz Herbert, 
landed at the Cape and, with an amazing imperial and 
prophetic spirit, took possession in the name of Britain 
of "the South African coast and continent!" Their 
action, however, was not followed up, and in 1652 
Holland stepped in and held the Cape for a century 
and a half. At the close of the Napoleonic wars it 
fell to Britain and the tide of colonisation set steadily 
in. t The conflicts between Dutch and British interests, 
which lasted throughout the nineteenth century, pro- 
moted expansion northward, and now Dutch and 
British are happily joined in the United States of 
South Africa. 

It was not till the last quarter of the nineteenth 
century that the scramble for Africa began. The dis- 
coveries of Livingstone and other travellers had 
revealed the enormous resources of the interior, indus- 
trial Europe was in want of raw material for her 
industries, and of new markets for her finished prod- 
ucts. Africa promised to supply both. Therefore 
Africa was divided up as spoil for the strong. Some 
of the results of this partition make painful reading, 
especially the atrocities of the Congo Free State. Free 



THE DARK CONTINENT BEFORE DAWN 25 

State, indeed ! — a vast region of tropical Africa placed 
at the mercy of a licentious king and a greedy group 
of financiers in Belgium, who glutted themselves with 
red rubber, — red with the lifeblood of the unhappy 
wretches by whose labours and tortures it was pro- 
duced. Fortunately this has been the exception, and 
it cannot be doubted that the partition of Africa and its 
control by the nations of Europe has proved on the 
whole a blessing to the African. It has led to the 
abolition of many cruel rites, it has restrained inter- 
tribal war, it has protected the African to some extent 
from the aggressions of lawless white men, and given 
him, often for the first time, the blessings of good 
government and settled peace. 

IV: The Coming of the Missionary 

The colonisation of Africa has been accompanied, 
and in many cases preceded, by Christian missionary 
effort. Prince Henry of Portugal, who sent out the 
first bold voyagers to feel their way round the conti- 
nent, was animated by a noble desire to promote the 
spread of the Christian faith, and stem the flowing 
tide of Islam. "Plant the Cross on some new head- 
land. That is what I want," he said. As early as 
1 49 1 Dominican missionaries made an imposing start 
on the Congo, and for a time their labours were 
rewarded with great outward success. No real impres- 
sion, however, was made upon the ignorance and bar- 
barism of the people, and that, together with the 
unworthy lives of the missionaries, brought all to 
ruin. The Jesuits also laboured with zeal and devotion 



26 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

in all the Portuguese colonies, and penetrated some 
distance into the interior, but their work, like that of 
the Dominicans, had no solid basis of Christian educa- 
tion, and when they were banished from the colonies 
for political reasons, it fell to pieces. Only a few 
ruined walls remain to witness to the work which the 
mediaeval Church attempted to do for Africa. It may 
be that some dim impressions of that work still linger 
in the African mind. Some years ago a remote heathen 
tribe on the Zambesi was found to possess a melody 
which proved to be a pure bit of fifteenth century church 
music, a melody moreover which had disappeared from 
the Portuguese churches about the end of the sixteenth 
century. This may well suggest the interesting ques- 
tion whether some of those African traditions which 
bear a resemblance to Scripture may not be derived 
from the same source. 

In the eighteenth century Protestant missions entered 
the field, the Moravians as usual leading the way. They 
were followed by the London Missionary Society, the 
Church Missionary Society and others. It was not 
till the nineteenth century, however, that much prog- 
ress was made, and the work established on a firm and 
enduring basis. Then began, that wide-spread and 
hopeful process of Christian education and training 
which has done so much for the transformation of 
Africa and the uplift of its people. Then appeared a 
succession of missionary heroes, whose courage and, 
endurance, whose devotion and holy zeal have been 
an inspiration to the Christian world, and whose names 
will ever be held in remembrance as the founders of 
the African Church. 



THE DARK CONTINENT BEFORE DAWN 27 

It should never be forgotten, however, that to 
African eyes these things wear a different aspect. The 
vast convulsions, the overthrow of the old order of 
things, the inferior position of the natives under the 
white man's rule, may well appear to them to be but 
doubtful blessings. When Mary Slessor was about to 
sail for Calabar she stood on deck and watched the 
boat being loaded with casks of spirits for the West 
Coast trade. "Scores of casks," she exclaimed sorrow- 
fully, "and only one missionary." It was a sharp 
reminder of what is often forgotten in church circles, 
that Christian mission work is but one small element 
in the manifold activities of the white man. The 
missionary preaches brotherhood, but the colonist 
refuses to give the right hand of fellowship to his black 
brother. The pure influence of the Gospel is countered 
by the corruptions of city life. It need not, therefore, 
be surprising if many Africans, ignorant of the dark- 
ness and barbarism of the past, are impatient under 
the restraints and disabilities of their present condition, 
if some are bitterly resentful, and would fiercely deny 
that the white man's coming has brought the dawn. 
Yet, surely, the dawn it is, dubious and stormy, doubt- 
less, at its first appearing, and with much darkness 
mingling with its light, but destined, by the blessing of 
God and the efforts of His people, to usher in for. 
Africa a brighter day. 



CHAPTER II 

ROBERT MOFFAT, MISSIONARY PIONEER 

I : A Scots Gardener 

Robert Moffat was born at Ormiston in East Lothian 
on December 21, 1795. His boyhood, however, was 
spent at Portsoy on the Moray Firth and at Carron- 
shore near Falkirk. When fourteen years old he was 
apprenticed as a gardener and for some time lived in 
a bothy with seven other men, not altogether a bad 
preparation for the rough life of a pioneer missionary. 
He grew up, a tall, strong lad, with dark, piercing eyes 
and a frame capable of more than ordinary endurance. 
He became a powerful swimmer, and on one occasion 
rescued a companion from drowning in the Firth of 
Forth. On finishing his apprenticeship he obtained a 
situation at High Leigh in Cheshire where he came 
into contact with the Methodists, to whom he owed 
his conversion. From childhood he had been under 
strong Christian influences. Both his parents were 
deeply religious after the somewhat stern old Scottish 
type of piety, and his mother had exacted from him, 
on leaving home, a solemn promise to read his Bible 
every day. Now, however, they were not without 
some suspicion of the confident faith and warm reli- 
gious feeling th^t breathed through their son's letters. 
His father, while welcoming the news of his conver- 

28 



ROBERT MOFFAT, MISSIONARY PIONEER 29 

sion "as cold water to a thirsty soul," proceeded at 
some length to exhort his son "not to be high-minded 
but to fear," and to this he added the warning, "Let 
him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." 

Mainly through the influence of Mr. Roby of Man- 
chester, Moffat's mind now began to turn to the mis- 
sion field. The seed had indeed been sown much earlier 
in his childhood's home. Writing to his aged mother 
after many years of service in Africa Moffat warmly 
acknowledges this. "Mother, dear mother, your many 
prayers have been heard. . . . Wherever I am I never 
forget how much I owe to your prayers. The first 
dawn of reflection respecting my soul commenced with 
hearing you pray." His mother's influence seems to 
have been felt in other ways. "My dear old mother, 
to keep us out of mischief in the long winter evenings, 
taught me both to sew and knit, and when I told her 
I intended being a man, she would reply, 'Lad, ye dinna 
ken whaur your lot will be cast.' " While the circle 
round the fire was thus usefully employed their mother 
was accustomed to read such missionary news as was 
then to be had, especially the heroic stories of the 
labours and sufferings of the Moravians in Greenland 
and among the plantation slaves in the East Indies. 
Now it became the settled ambition of young Moffat to 
emulate these pioneers of the Gospel among the heathen. 

Mr. Roby, in order to have his young friend nearer 
him for supervision and help, got work for him in 
the nursery garden of Mr. Smith of Dukinfield, a warm 
supporter of missions. "Thus was I led by a way that 
I knew not," writes Moffat, "for another important 
end, for. otherwise I might not have had my late dear 



30 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

wife to be my companion and partner in all my hopes 
and fears for more than half a century in Africa. 
As it was, Mr. Smith's only daughter possessing a 
warm missionary heart, we soon became attached to 
one another, but she was not allowed to join me in 
Africa till nearly three years after I left." In physique 
the future Mrs. Moffat presented a contrast to her 
husband, being under ordinary height, with blue eyes, 
and a complexion that never lost its delicate girlish 
bloom. She was never strong and often her mind was 
oppressed by gloomy forebodings, but so perfectly 
did she become united with her husband in mutual love 
and trust, and in all their religious aspirations and 
labours, that their life story was fittingly recorded by 
their son in one common biography, The Lives of 
Robert and Mary Moffat. 

After a first application to the London Missionary 
Society had been refused Moffat was at length, through 
the influence of his friend Mr. Roby, accepted for 
service in Africa. On September 30, 18 16, he was 
solemnly set apart for the work, with eight others, at 
a meeting in Surrey Chapel, London. Five of the 
young missionaries were allocated to Africa, four to 
the South Seas. Among the latter was John Williams, 
the Apostle of Polynesia, whose devoted life was des- 
tined to be crowned by glorious martyrdom on Erro- 
manga. It seemed at one moment as if Moffat and 
Williams would have more than a passing connection, 
for it was proposed that both should go to the South 
Seas. Dr. Waugh, however, a Scots member of the 
committee, protested that "thae twa lads are ower 



ROBERT MOFFAT, MISSIONARY PIONEER 31 

young to gang thegither." Thus the little turn was 
given that determined a great career. 



II: The Infant Colony 

Moffat and his companions reached Cape Town in 
January, 1817. The Colony was then in its infancy, 
for only three years had elapsed since British power 
was established as paramount at the Cape. Of vital 
importance as the half way house to India, it was 
first occupied by the Dutch, then seized by the French, 
and so continued a bone of contention throughout the 
period of the Napoleonic wars. The Colony now 
extended northward to the Orange River, but in 
reality its northern boundary was vague and undefined. 
Scarcely a sprinkling of white settlers was scattered 
over the vast area, while roving bands of Boers kept 
moving farther into the interior, hoping thus to leave 
British justice behind them, and enjoy unfettered liberty 
to enslave the native races. Crossing the Orange River 
they occupied the territory between the Orange and 
Vaal Rivers, then, having crossed the Vaal, they spread 
themselves thinly over the country to the north, up 
to the Limpopo. Thus were laid the foundations of 
what became the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, 
whose relations to British rule were to prove a source 
of ever recurring trouble for nearly a centuy, and whose 
determined hostility to Christian missions had much 
to do in determining the work of Moffat and the 
career of Livingstone. 



32 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

The multitudinous tribes of natives, Bantu in the 
east and centre, Hottentot and Bushman in the west, 
were in a continual state of unrest. Intertribal wars 
and especially the wholesale devastations of the Zulu 
chief, Chaka, caused frequent migrations, with the 
inevitable accompaniment of bloodshed and plundering. 
In addition, the increasing pressure of white settlers 
who rode rough-shod over native rights led to a grow- 
ing bitterness which ever and anon burst forth in 
savage outrage and equally savage reprisal. Accord- 
ingly, life along the northern border of the Colony was 
full of ever recurring perils and alarms. 

North of the Orange River there stretches east and 
west a strip of barely habitable country called Great 
Namaqualand which becomes more parched and barren 
towards the north till it merges into the Kalahari Des- 
ert. Here was the home of various tribes of Hotten- 
tots and Bushmen, while the somewhat more fertile 
region to the east, bordering on the Transvaal, was 
inhabited by the Bechuanas, a Bantu tribe. Many of 
these Hottentots had retired over the Orange River to 
escape the advancing tide of civilization, and their 
land being beyond the Colony gradually became the 
refuge of native marauders and malcontents. Perhaps 
the most powerful element in the country was the 
Griquas or Bastards, a group of Hottentots with some 
infusion of Dutch blood, whose possession of firearms 
and of horses made them irresistible against a purely 
native force. Their principal settlement was at Griqua 
Town not far from the junction of the Orange River 
and the Vaal. 



ROBERT MOFFAT, MISSIONARY PIONEER 33 

III: Taming a Freebooter 

In Great Namaqualand the London Missionary So- 
ciety had been at work before Moffat's arrival. The 
Bushmen were found almost impossible to evangelise, 
owing to their being pure nomads with neither homes 
nor settlements of any kind. Among the other Hot- 
tentots some slight progress had been made. In par- 
ticular the chief, Africaner, who for years had been 
the terror of the border, was favourably impressed. It 
was to his kraal that Moffat was now directed to pro- 
ceed. The Government of the Cape at first refused 
permission to travel beyond the frontier, evidently 
from some vague idea that missionary work would 
tend to consolidate the roaming tribes and freebooters, 
and make them more dangerous to the Colony. This 
caused a delay of several months, which Moffat spent 
at Stellenbosch in acquiring the "Dutch language. The 
veto of the Government having been at length with- 
drawn, Moffat travelled north, crossed the Orange 
River and reached Africaner's kraal in January, 1818, 
a year after his landing at the Cape. A Mr. Ebner, 
who had been at work here for some time previously 
but who, through some disagreement with Africaner's 
people, felt his life to be in danger, immediately 
departed on Moffat's arrival, and the young mission- 
ary was left alone to make the best of his novel and 
difficult position. 

Moffat's stay in Namaqualand did not extend to 
two years, yet his connection with Africaner and the 
influence he exerted over that once wild and lawless 
bandit is one of the most romantic episodes in his life. 



34 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

On his journey north he had heard from Dutch farmers 
the most gloomy forebodings of the fate awaiting him. 
Some of their kindly vrouws even shed tears over this 
bonnie Scotch laddie going to an untimely death. 
Africaner was an outlaw upon whose head the Cape 
Government had set a price, and any hope that he might 
"tak' a thought and mend'' was no more regarded 
than the ravings of lunacy. 

Africaner's reception, though cool, was not un- 
friendly. By his order a rude hut was speedily erected 
in which Moffat settled down to a life of primitive 
simplicity. His meagre salary of £25 per armum was 
of no immediate use to him and he was compelled to 
subsist entirely on native food, chiefly milk and flesh. 
Often he had to tighten his belt over an empty stomach. 
The people among whom he laboured seemed hopelessly 
degraded. The constant struggle for a bare existence 
left no room for religion and but little for natural 
affection. The idea of God and the sense of right and 
wrong could hardly be said to exist. Undesirable 
infants were cast away and helpless old people left to 
perish. 

In pleasing contrast was the earnestness of the chief, 
Africaner, who from the first seemed eager to learn 
and placed himself day by day with the utmost regu- 
larity under Moffat's teaching. He made rapid prog- 
ress in Christian knowledge and character and actively 
promoted the work of the mission. The situation of 
his people, however, became impossible through long 
continued drought, and Africaner along with Moffat 
undertook a long journey to the north in the hope of 
finding a place suitable for a permanent settlement. In 



ROBERT MOFFAT, MISSIONARY PIONEER 35 

this they were unsuccessful, and returned after endur- 
ing many hardships in the desert. Moffat next went 
eastward to inspect a location offered to Africaner's 
people by the chiefs of the Griquas. On this journey 
he unwittingly drank of a pool which had been poi- 
soned by the Bushman to kill game. Fortunately the 
effects passed off after a few days' illness. Having sat- 
isfied himself that Africaner should move east to Gri- 
qualand he returned and reported to the chief, who 
cordially agreed. 

Moffat was now arranging to travel to Cape Town 
to meet his future wife, and to confer with deputies 
of the London Missionary Society who had been sent 
out to inquire into the work in South Africa. He 
proposed to Africaner to accompany him. At first the 
chief was startled and his people were thrown into 
violent alarm at the bare idea. For an outlaw, with a 
reward of £100 offered for his head, it might well 
seem madness to cross the Orange River, and the 
proposal was open to the suspicion of treachery. Mof- 
fat, however, saw great possibilities of good in recon- 
ciling the chief to the Government, and in exhibiting 
to friends and enemies of the mission this extraor- 
dinary trophy of the Gospel. Africaner at length 
consented and travelled through the Colony in dis- 
guise as Moffat's servant. On several occasions he had 
the curious experience of hearing Dutch farmers de- 
clare their utter scepticism as to his conversion, while 
they little dreamed that the subject of their remarks 
was standing by. Moffat himself was an object of 
interest. He tells with amusement of the alarm of 
one worthy farmer who took him for a ghost. "Every- 



36 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

body says you were murdered," he exclaimed, "and a 
man told me he had seen your bones." When informed 
that Africaner was now "a truly godly man," he 
replied, "I can believe almost anything you say but 
tJiat I cannot credit. There are seven wonders in the 
world, that would be the eighth." At length, half 
convinced, he said, "Well, if what you say is true, I 
have only one wish and that is to see him before I die, 
and when you return, as sure as the sun is over our 
heads, I will go with you to see him, though he killed 
my own uncle." Trusting the discretion and goodwill 
of the farmer, Moffat said, "This is Africaner." The 
farmer was thunderstruck, but when by a few ques- 
tions he had assured himself of the fact, he lifted up 
his eyes and exclaimed, "O God, what a miracle of 
Thy power! What cannot Thy grace accomplish?" 

The Governor of the Cape, Lord Charles Somerset, 
was equally sceptical at first, but Moffat's assurances 
and still more the appearance and manners of Africaner 
convinced him of the reality of the miracle, and even- 
tually the Government reward offered for the head of 
the freebooter was spent in buying him a wagon in 
which he safely returned home to his people. 

Moffat now received instructions to proceed to 
Bechuanaland which lies to the east of the Kala- 
hari Desert, between that region of desolation 
and the Transvaal. His destination was Kuruman, a 
hundred miles north of Griqua Town, but after cross- 
ing the Orange River he was detained for several 
months in Griqua Town, waiting Government permis- 
sion to go north. Here he parted, for the last time as 
it proved, from his friend Africaner. The chief had 



ROBERT MOFFAT, MISSIONARY PIONEER 37 

brought Moffat's goods across country from Nama- 
qualand in his wagon, and he left hoping soon to bring 
his people east to Griqualand, but this design was frus- 
trated by his death. 

Griqua Town was at this time peopled by a miscel- 
laneous collection of Griquas, Hottentots and Bushmen, 
with refugees from various other tribes. The Society 
had been at work among them for twenty years with 
some success, and the community had chosen as their 
chief a Christian Bushman named Waterboer, who 
conducted their affairs with great discretion and fidelity. 
Under his rule the Griquas became a power to be 
reckoned with on the border, and on one critical occa- 
sion they were the means of averting disaster from 
the Colony. In Griqua Town Mary Moffat was born, 
who afterwards became the wife of David Living- 
stone. After her birth Moffat, or Moshete as the 
natives called him, became known as Ra-Mary (father 
of Mary), while his wife, by the same native usage, 
was designated Ma-Mary. 

IV: The Romance of Kuruman 

The Moffats now proceeded to Kuruman which will 
be for ever associated with their life and labours. The 
settlement depended for its existence on the water of 
the Kuruman River so called, though it was a fountain 
rather than a running stream. Westward the land 
rapidly faded into the desert, while eastward it grew 
more fertile towards the Transvaal. The Bechuanas 
were still in unbroken heathenism. "They looked at 
the sun with the eyes of an ox." Christian truth was 



38 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

received with stolid indifference or with shouts of 
derisive laughter. "Our labours," writes Moffat, 
"might well be compared to the attempts of a child to 
grasp the surface of a polished mirror, or those of a 
husbandman labouring to transform the surface of a 
granite rock into arable land, on which he might sow 
his seed." The rude hut of the missionaries gave them 
none of the privacy of home life, for men and women 
would crowd into it as often and as long as they had 
a mind, and, to make matters worse, they never lost a 
chance of pilfering. One of themselves fitly described 
their condition when he said to Moffat years after- 
wards, "You found us beasts, not men." 

A long continued drought made the situation more 
difficult, for the missionaries were suspected of frus- 
trating the efforts of the official rainmaker. The earn- 
est looks which they were seen to cast towards the sky 
whenever a cloud appeared were sufficient evidence that 
they bewitched the rain. They were ordered by .the 
chiefs to leave the country under threats of violence, to 
which the fearless answer was given, "You may shed 
our blood or burn us out. Then shall they who sent us 
know, and God who now sees and hears what we do, 
shall know, that we have been persecuted indeed." 
These solemn words awed their opponents, and in the 
end the rainmaker was the first to go. 

In 1823 vague and disturbing rumours began to 
reach Kuruman of a savage horde of warriors advanc- 
ing from the east, and spreading universal destruc- 
tion along their path. They proved to be the Mantiti, 
a branch of the Zulu family, which, like the Matabele, 
had broken bounds and become the scourge of every 



ROBERT MOFFAT, MISSIONARY PIONEER 39 

tribe they encountered. Moffat, who at first did not re- 
gard these rumours seriously, took a journey to the 
northeast to visit the Bangwaketsi. As he advanced he 
soon had convincing evidence that a fearful danger was 
imminently threatening the Bechuanas and Kuruman. 
He hurried home and a meeting of chiefs and people 
was hastily summoned. Great was the consternation, 
and some proposed flight into the Kalahari Desert. To 
Moffat the only hope seemed to lie in the horses and 
guns of the Griquas and, his proposal being agreed to, 
he proceeded to Griqua Town to solicit their help. The 
Griquas, seeing their own safety imperilled, responded 
promptly to the appeal and brought to Kuruman a force 
of a hundred mounted men. Joining forces with the 
Bechuanas they advanced to meet the enemy. The 
hordes of the Mantiti came surging onward and refused 
every attempt at negotiation. They fought with in- 
credible ferocity and scattered the Bechuanas like 
chaff. But the horses and guns of the Griquas, with 
which they were totally unacquainted, struck terror into 
their ranks and they broke and fled. But for this 
check they would without doubt have overrun the 
northern districts of Cape Colony. 

Moffat's conduct throughout this crisis made a deep 
and lasting impression upon the natives, and gave him 
a prestige among them which he never afterwards lost. 
For some time the country continued in a very unset- 
tled state. The scattered hordes of the Mantiti still 
roamed about, while lawless bands of Griquas took to 
the trade of freebooters and terrorised the tribes. On 
one occasion Moffat had an escape which he regarded 
as singularly providential. He had gone to the north 



40 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

to visit the Bangwaketsi, and a considerable number 
of Griquas travelled with him for the purpose of ele- 
phant hunting. They were to return home by different 
routes but at the last moment the Griquas, for no ap- 
parent reason, determined to return with Moffat. On 
the way they were attacked by a strong force of Man- 
titi, into whose hands Moffat w T ould undoubtedly have 
fallen had he been alone. 

Amid these alarms the work of the mission was 
steadily carried on, but still the heathenism of the peo- 
ple presented an unbroken front. There were many 
dark hours of despondency but faith triumphed. "We 
may not live to see it," Mary Moffat would say to her 
husband, "but the awakening will come as surely as the 
sun will rise to-morrow." Weak in body and naturally 
prone to depression and gloomy fears, she had an un- 
wavering confidence in the future of God's work. 
Writing to a friend who had asked if there was any- 
thing she could send out for the use of the mission, 
Mrs. Moffat said, "Send us a communion service. We 
shall want it one day." Two or three years elapsed, 
and so fruitless did the work appear that the Directors 
of the Society were considering the advisability of 
abandoning the mission. 

At length in 1829 the first clear signs of daybreak 
appeared. The services in the little mission church 
began to be crowded and a new interest and emotion 
seemed to awaken in heathen breasts. The record of it 
may best be given in Moffat's own words. "The simple 
Gospel," he writes, "now melted their flinty hearts, 
and eyes now wept which never before shed the tear of 
hallowed sorrow. Notwithstanding our earnest desires 



ROBERT MOFFAT, MISSIONARY PIONEER 41 

and fervent prayers, we were taken by surprise. We 
had so long been accustomed to indifference, that we 
felt unprepared to look on a scene which perfectly over- 
whelmed our minds. Our temporary little chapel be- 
came a Bochim — a place of weeping — and the sympathy 
of feeling spread from heart to heart, so that even 
infants wept. Some, after gazing with extreme in- 
tensity of feeling on the preacher, would fall down in 
hysterics, and others were carried out in a state of 
great exhaustion." After instruction and examination 
Moffat baptised his first six converts and partook with 
them of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. "Our 
feelings on that occasion," he writes, "were such as 
our pen would fail to describe. We were as those that 
dreamed, while we realised the promise on which our 
souls had often hung, 'He that goeth forth and weep- 
eth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again 
with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.' " By a 
striking coincidence, the communion vessels which Mrs. 
Moffat had asked for years before, arrived on the 
Friday preceding that memorable Sunday. 

V : The Matabele 

The same year Moffat paid his first visit to the Mata- 
bele. For some time rumours had reached him of this 
powerful and warlike people, who were at that time 
settled beside the Limpopo, far to the east of Kuruman. 
They had come north from Zululand, and they after- 
wards overran the country as far as the Zambesi before 
their military despotism was broken by British arms. 



42 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

Their chief, Mosilikatse, anxious to learn of the white 
man and his ways, sent two of his headmen to Kuru- 
man. They were greatly struck by what they saw, and 
pressed Moffat to visit their chief. He consented, and 
after a long and arduous journey reached the kraal of 
the Matabele king. Mosilikatse gave him a cordial wel- 
come and handsomely acknowledged the kindness 
shown to his deputies as kindness shown to himself. 
"My father,' ' he said, "you have made my heart as 
white as milk. I cannot cease to wonder at the love 
of a stranger." 

Moffat on his part was much struck with the mili- 
tary discipline of the Matabele and the savage pomp 
of their king. It exceeded anything that was to be 
seen elsewhere in South Africa. A tragic example was 
given of the spirit of the warriors. One of the In- 
dunas, being condemned to death, was pardoned on the 
intercession of Moffat but sentenced to be disgraced 
from his rank. At once he besought the king to let 
him die like a warrior for he could not live in dis- 
grace. His request was granted and he was led forth 
to instant execution. Such was the missionary's first 
Sunday morning among the Matabele. 

Soon after Moffat's return to Kuruman he travelled 
to Cape Town with his wife and children, in order to 
put the children to school and at the same time to 
arrange for the printing of some parts of the New Tes- 
tament which he had translated into Sechuana. 
Throughout his whole career he occupied every spare 
moment of a busy life with translation work and never 
ceased till he had given the Bechuanas the whole of the 



ROBERT MOFFAT, MISSIONARY PIONEER 43 

Scriptures in their own language. Finding no printer 
in Cape Town to undertake the work he took it in hand 
himself under the guidance of a Government printer. 
This proved a fortunate circumstance for at that junc- 
ture a mission printing press arrived at the Cape, which 
enabled Moffat henceforth to do his own printing at 
Kuruman. The work of the mission was now proceed- 
ing hopefully. Schools were established at various 
centres with the help of native teachers, and pleasing 
evidences began to appear of a desire for improvement. 
Habits of personal cleanliness, greater decency in 
clothing, better houses and rude attempts at furniture 
were all welcome as signs of a new spirit among the 
people. A demand arose for candles, and the fat which 
had before been larded on to greasy bodies was now 
put to a better use. Everywhere the people were keen 
to learn the mystery of reading. To meet this ardour 
Moffat taught them to sing the ABC to the tune of 
Auld Laug Syne, but he confesses that sometimes, 
when it was rendered far on into the night, he "was 
ready to wish it at John o' Groat's House." In 1835 
Moffat again visited the Matabele and spent two months 
with Mosilikatse, who showed him round the country, 
travelling in Moffat's wagon. The corpulent monarch 
found the bed in the wagon much to his taste and in- 
vited its owner to come and lie beside him, an invita- 
tion which was politely declined. Soon after this visit 
the Matabele, being attacked by the Zulus and feeling 
also the pressure of the Boers in the Transvaal, mi- 
grated to the north where for some years they were 
lost sight of. 



44 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

VI : Moffat and Livingstone 

The Moffats had now been twenty years in Africa 
and had endured to the full the privations and hard- 
ships that fall to the lot of the pioneer. Though still 
in early middle life they were veterans in the service 
and their work had impressed the imagination of the 
home Churches to a degree they had little idea of. In 
1838 they came home on their first and only furlough. 
As happens in such a case with a popular missionary, 
Moffat immediately found himself overwhelmed with 
engagements. The clamorous public demanded its hero 
on every possible occasion, and his own ardent spirit 
made him only too willing to respond. Amid such 
distractions Moffat found time to see through the press 
the Sechuana New Testament and to publish an ac- 
count of his experiences under the title of "Labours 
and Scenes in South Africa" The most notable event 
of this visit, however, was the securing of a powerful 
recruit for the Bechuana mission in the person of David 
Livingstone, who sailed for the Cape in 1840, taking 
with him 500 copies of Moffat's Sechuana New Testa- 
ment. The Moffats followed in 1842. Their visit to 
the home country, following, as it did, immediately 
after the visit of John Williams from the South Seas, 
gave a powerful stimulus to missionary effort in all 
the Churches. 

The return to Kuruman, in its concluding stages, as- 
sumed the appearance of a triumphal procession. Liv- 
ingstone met the Moffats at the Vaal to help them 
across the river, and from that point onwards the vil- 
lagers poured out with boisterous welcome. Chiefs 



ROBERT MOFFAT, MISSIONARY PIONEER 45 

and tribesmen from far and near came to visit their old 
friends whom they had hardly expected to see again. 
Among these a specially welcome visitor was Mothibi, 
the paramount chief of the Bechuanas who had but 
recently, in his old age, professed the Christian faith. 

Now commenced a second term of service which con- 
tinued without a break for twenty-seven years till Mof- 
fat's retirement in 1870. During this period his fame 
was gradually overshadowed by the supreme romance 
and glory of Livingstone, but the achievements of the 
older man were very notable and he retained to the end 
the adventurous spirit of his youth. Livingstone went 
to open a new station, 250 miles north of Kuruman, to 
which he soon after brought his bride, the younger 
Mary Moffat. In the subsequent explorations of Liv- 
ingstone Moffat naturally took a deep interest. They 
were entirely in accord with his own views. He had 
long felt that the missionary advance northward from 
the Cape had reached its limit. "I feel persuaded," 
he wrote in 1840, "that the period has arrived when 
we must abandon the idea of long, expensive, tiresome, 
and in some instances dangerous journeys, either from 
the promontory of the Cape, or from Algoa Bay, to 
remote distances in the interior. It is now quite time 
to look to the eastern and western coasts of the con- 
tinent, and form a chain of stations from either or both, 
towards the centre." From these words it will be seen 
that Livingstone was following no hasty and impulsive 
scheme of his own. 

Another determining factor in the situation was the 
hostility of the Boers. They had deliberately resolved 
to cut the chain of mission stations which stretched 



46 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

towards the north between Transvaal and the Kala- 
hari Desert, and thus bar the way to the interior. In 
face of this policy Moffat therefore felt that Living- 
stone's journeys were a vital necessity if the Gospel 
was to be carried to the teeming millions of Central 
Africa. 

Meantime at Kuruman the arduous routine work of 
a mission station went on steadily from year to year. 
In many respects the second stage of work in a mission 
field is more trying than the first, for the upward prog- 
ress of a heathen people is wavering and painfully 
slow. Converts suffer, in many cases, grievous re- 
lapse, and even when they continue steadfast their con- 
ceptions of the Christian life are very frequently dis- 
appointing. So we find Moffat writing sorrowfully 
in 185 1, "We are instant in season and out of season 
in our public duties and in the work of translation, but 
the progress is slow, very slow." Mary Moffat also, 
writing to her father, says, "There is much to discour- 
age, yet we feel we must not despair." Very sensibly 
she recalls the state of the people thirty years before, 
and reckons up the progress already made. Such 
thoughts having passed through her mind as she sat 
in the little native prayer meeting and listened to the 
singing of the Bechuana Christians, she adds, "I came 
home stronger in my hopes and expectations for the 
kingdom of Christ in poor Africa than I had been 
for some months." 

In 1853 Moffat paid his third visit to the Matabele 
who now occupied the country up to the Zambesi. He 
found Mosilikatse, the once proud warrior king, now 
an aged cripple, and was fortunately able to restore in 



ROBERT MOFFAT, MISSIONARY PIONEER 47 

some measure his shattered health. One object of 
this journey was to convey supplies to the Zambesi 
for Livingstone who had gone into the unknown in- 
terior the previous year. Finding it impossible to 
reach the Zambesi in his wagon Moffat procured Mata- 
bele carriers who went forward with the supplies. On 
reaching the river they left the packages on the bank 
as the natives could not be induced to come over and 
receive them. After the departure of the Matabele, 
however, the timid river folk stored the goods carefully 
on an island where Livingstone found them all safe 
on his arrival from the west coast. 

Moffat returned to Kuruman and resumed his work 
of preaching and teaching, translating and printing. 
Meantime Livingstone, having reached the west coast 
at Loanda, recrossed the continent to the east coast and 
carried home to England the story of his discoveries. 
The great interest aroused by his unparalleled journey 
led to an expansion of missionary enterprise. The at- 
tention of the London Missionary Society was directed 
to the Matabele on the south side of the Zambesi, 
and to the Makololo, on the north side of the river. 
Two missionary expeditions were fitted out to com- 
mence work among these tribes. It was proposed 
that Moffat should lead the expedition to the Mata- 
bele, as his influence with Mosilikatse would do much 
to pave the way. This was in 1857, when Moffat 
was sixty-two years of age and had forty-one years 
of service behind him. Far from refusing this new 
call he set off at once to prepare the Matabele for the 
arrival of the mission. It meant a seven hundred mile 
trek to the northeast, through a thirsty and difficult 



48 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

country, and the task before him was no easy one. Mo- 
silikatse had confidence in Moffat but of strangers he 
was suspicious. Isolation had for long been the policy 
of the Matabele. They feared, not without reason, 
that the advent of the white man would be the begin- 
ning of the end. Moffat, having overcome these scru- 
ples and obtained a reluctant consent to the establish- 
ment of the mission, now hurried south to Cape Town 
to meet the new missionaries and to say good-bye to 
Livingstone who was going out to his post as British 
consul on the Zambesi. Among the missionaries for 
Matabele land was Moffat's own son John, whose sal- 
ary for five years was guaranteed by Livingstone. To 
him Mrs. Moffat wrote feelingly, "On the tenth of next 
month it will be twenty-five years since I parted with 
your father when he visited the tyrant Mosilikatse 
the second time, he being then the terror of the tribes 
in the latitudes north of us, and it was deemed prudent 
to conciliate him that the interior might not be closed 
against the progress of the Gospel. How little did I 
then think that the very babe who sat before me on 
his nurse's lap was destined to go to that savage peo- 
ple to hold before them the lamp of eternal life. Un- 
able as I then was to hold you in my embrace, your 
sweet smiles, which in my solitude I so often wit- 
nessed, are yet engraven on my now shattered memory. 
Methinks they said, 'Cheer up, dear mother, though you 
think your course is nearly finished, I am destined to 
live to fulfil your heart's desire.' " 

In 1859 the expeditions to the Makololo and the Ma- 
tabele set out from Kuruman. The Makololo mission 
was a disastrous failure and forms one of the most 



ROBERT MOFFAT, MISSIONARY PIONEER 49 

tragic episodes in missionary history. The mission 
to the Matabele was established only by the influence 
and efforts of Moffat who spent a year with that war- 
like people, soothing their suspicions and organising 
the mission station at Inyati. His activities are thus 
described by one who witnessed them. "There were 
houses to be built, wagons to be repaired, garden 
ground to be broken up. Early and late Moffat was to 
be found at work, always at work, it might be at the 
saw-pit, or the blacksmith's forge, or the carpenter's 
bench, or aiding the younger men where their own 
knowledge and skill failed them." Having completed 
his work he took his last leave of Mosilikatse and re- 
turned to Kuruman. 

VII : Farewell to Kuruman 

The closing years of Moffat's life in Africa were 
as busy and arduous as any, though less romantic and 
adventurous. His failing strength made long journeys 
impossible, and he confined his energies to administer- 
ing the affairs of the central station, while younger 
colleagues went farther afield. His name was a house- 
hold word among all the tribes north of the Orange 
River, many of whom believed him to be the para- 
mount chief of the white men. Unscrupulous traders, 
taking advantage of this, represented themselves as his 
agents, delivered messages in his name, and declared 
that they dared not face their great chief at Kuruman 
unless they got more ivory and better prices for their 
goods. 

The home at Kuruman was shadowed again and again 



50 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

by heavy sorrows. In 1862 the Moffats' eldest son 
Robert died when on a wagon journey, only a few 
hours distant from Kuruman. About the same time the 
sad news arrived of the death of Mrs. Livingstone on 
the Zambesi. In 1865 Moffat himself was savagely 
attacked by a crazy native armed with a knobkerry who 
struck him some terrible blows that endangered his life. 
It was months before he recovered from the shock. 
Next year M. Fredoux, a French missionary who had 
married Ann Moffat, met his death under tragic cir- 
cumstances. He was endeavouring to reason with a 
trader whose atrocious conduct had roused the hostility 
of the natives, when the desperate man blew up his 
own wagon which was loaded with gunpowder, in- 
stantly killing Fredoux and himself and a dozen natives. 
The long day of service was drawing to a close. In 
1868 Moffat was joined by his son John, at Kuruman, 
in whose care he was happy to think he would leave 
his beloved work. The Directors had for some time 
been urging him to come home, and he now felt that 
his strength was no longer equal to his task. In 1870 
he took his last farewell of the people among whom he 
had laboured for more than half a century, and by 
whom he was now regarded with feelings of deepest 
veneration. The scene is thus described by his son. 
"On Sunday the twentieth of March Robert Moffat 
preached for the last time in the Kuruman church. 
In all that great congregation there were few of his 
own contemporaries. The older people were for the 
most part children at the time when they had first seen 
the missionaries. With a pathetic grace peculiarly his 
own, he pleaded with those who still remained unbe- 



ROBERT MOFFAT, MISSIONARY PIONEER 51 



lieving amid the Gospel privileges they had now en- 
joyed so many years. With a fatherly benediction he 
commended to the grace of God those who had been 
to him a joy and crown. It was an impressive close 
to an impressive career. On Friday following, the de- 
parture took place. The final scene was such as could 
scarcely be described in words. As the old missionary 
and his wife came out of their door and walked to their 
wagon they were beset by the crowds, each longing 
for one more touch of the hand and one more word. 
As the wagon drove away it was followed by all who 
could walk, and a long and pitiful wail rose, enough to 
melt the hardest heart." 

Amid the universal sadness it must have been an in- 
spiration for the two veterans to reflect on the con- 
trast between the manner of their departure and the 
reception they met with on their first arrival. Few 
workers in the Kingdom of God are privileged to see so 
profound a change produced as the result of their la- 
bours. It is the rich reward sometimes given to those 
who have gone forth in faith into the wilderness of 
heathenism, to sow the seed, to tend and water it, un- 
til at last they gather in abundance the rich fruits of 
the garden of God. 

VIII : A Missionary to the Last 

A few sentences may suffice to give an outline of 
the last years of Moffat's life. It is proof of the ex- 
traordinary vitality of the man that, having come home 
after so arduous a life, he continued his services to the 
missionary cause with great activity for thirteen years. 
Even the death of his wife in 1872, though it made 



52 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

him feel very desolate and homeless, did not crush his 
spirit. He travelled extensively in England and Scot- 
land on missionary deputation work, and once he went 
as far as Paris, where he addressed several meetings, 
notably a great gathering of 4000 French Protestant 
children. Everywhere he went his presence excited 
the strongest interest, for he had come to be regarded 
by universal consent as "the venerable father of the 
missionary world." Various honours were conferred 
on him, including an audience with Queen Victoria. 
Several thousand pounds were subscribed for a Train- 
ing Institute at Kuruman, and Moffat himself received 
a gift of £5000. On one of his journeys to Scotland 
he visited the home of his boyhood, where he had 
some amusing encounters with his old school fellows. 
Not without difficulty did he convince them that he 
was really "the great Moffat." 

"Are you aware, sir," said the village tailor oracu- 
larly, "that if you are really the person you represent 
yourself to be, you must be the father-in-law of Living- 
stone, the African explorer." 

"And so I am," said Moffat. 

The old tailor got to his feet. "Is it possible," he 
exclaimed, "that the father-in-law of Livingstone 
stands before me, and under my humble roof?" 

In 1874 the body of Livingstone was brought home 
to England and interred in Westminster Abbey. Mof- 
fat escorted the remains from Southampton to Lon- 
don and was present at the funeral service in the Ab- 
bey. To him it was a deeply affecting occasion, and 
must have brought a rush of memories out of the heroic 
past, of African travel and toil. 



ROBERT MOFFAT, MISSIONARY PIONEER 53 

His last days were spent at Park Cottage, Leigh, 
where, tended by the loving care of his daughter, he 
died on August 10, 1883. Many tributes were paid 
to his memory and the value of his work. The fol- 
lowing sentences from a leading article in the Times 
may serve to indicate the nation's estimate of his life. 
"Dr. Robert Moffat has left an abiding name as a pio- 
neer of modern missionary work in South Africa. . . . 
It is the fashion in some quarters to scoff at mission- 
aries, to receive their reports with incredulity, to look 
at them at the best as no more than harmless enthusi- 
asts, proper subjects for pity, if not for ridicule. The 
records of missionary work in South Africa must be 
a blank page to those by whom such ideas are enter- 
tained. We owe it to our missionaries that the whole 
region has been opened up. . . . The progress of 
South Africa has been mainly due to men of Moffat's 
stamp. It would seem indeed that it is only by the 
agency of such men as Moffat and his like that the con- 
tact of the white and black races can be anything but 
a curse to the blacks. . . . Moffat's name will be re- 
membered while the South African Church endures, 
and his example will remain with us as a stimulus to 
others, and as an abiding proof of what a Christian 
missionary can be and can do." 



CHAPTER III 

DAVID LIVINGSTONE, MISSIONARY EXPLORER 

David Livingstone, the most famous of the mis- 
sionary heroes of Africa and the prince of African 
explorers, was born at Blantyre on the Clyde on the 
tenth of March, 1813. He came of highland ancestry, 
his great grandfather having fallen at the Battle of Cul- 
loden, but it would be a mistake to seek here, as some 
have done, the master key to Livingstone's character. 
His Highland pride is but another name for Scottish 
independence, while his strong common sense and 
pawky humour, his resoluteness, his sturdy democratic 
principles, are characteristic of the Saxon more than of 
the Gael. 

I : Blantyre Mill 

His father was an itinerant tea dealer who, being a 
man of ardent religious zeal, acted the part of an un- 
paid colporteur. His mother is described as "a deli- 
cate little woman with a wonderful flow of good spir- 
its, and remarkable for the beauty of her eyes, to which 
those of her son David bore a strong resemblance." 
The two-roomed house in Blantyre must have been 
sadly overcrowded as five children grew up in it, but 
it was a home where the sterling Christian character 
of the parents, the mother's gentleness blending with 
the father's strictness, impressed upon their children's 

54 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE, EXPLORER 55 

minds the fear of God. The boys had to begin work 
early in order to contribute to the support of the family. 
Accordingly at the age of ten David was sent to the 
cotton mill which stands on the bank of the Clyde, a 
stone's throw from his home. 

His hours of work were from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., and 
after that he would rush off to an evening school from 
8 to io. Returning home he often pursued his studies 
till midnight, when his mother would snatch away his 
book and pack him off to bed. From an early age his 
ambition was to become a medical missionary in China. 
With this end in view he attended classes in Glasgow 
during the winter season and returned to his loom in 
Blantyre mill for the summer. "I never received a 
farthing of aid from anyone," he wrote afterwards, 
"and should have accomplished my project of going to 
China as a medical missionary in the course of time by 
my own efforts, had not some friends advised my join- 
ing the London Missionary Society on account of its 
perfectly unsectarian character." 

His application to the Society being favourably en- 
tertained, he was summoned to London for examina- 
tion. While there he went with a fellow-student to visit 
Westminster Abbey. How little could he have dreamed 
as he gazed around him at the monuments of the mighty 4 
dead that he was standing upon his own grave ! Mean- 
time war with China had closed that door and Living- 
stone's thoughts now began to turn towards Africa. 
This was due mainly to the influence of Dr. Moffat 
who had come home on furlough and was powerfully 
stirring the churches by his addresses and writings. 
After several talks with him Livingstone said, "What 



56 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

is the use of my waiting for the end of this abominable 
opium war? I will go at once to Africa!" He sailed 
for the Cape on the 8th of December, 1840. It was 
very characteristic of him that the three months' voy- 
age was mainly spent in learning from the captain of 
the ship as much as possible of the art of navigation. 
"He was very obliging to me," writes Livingstone, "and 
gave me all the information in his power respecting the 
use of the quadrant, frequently sitting up till twelve 
o'clock at night for the purpose of taking lunar ob- 
servations with me." 

II : The Valley of Mdbotsa 

Livingstone's instructions from the London Mis- 
sionary Society were to proceed to Kuruman and from 
there to prospect for the opening of a new mission 
station among the tribes to the north. After various 
journeys he selected "the beautiful valley of Mabotsa," 
and thither he removed in 1843. It was while at Ma- 
botsa that he was attacked by a wounded lion and only 
rescued by the courage of his native teacher, Mebalwe, 
and another man whose life he had previously saved. 
His left arm, however, was shattered above the elbow, 
producing a false joint. It is one of the most amaz- 
ing facts in the story of Livingstone that through all 
his subsequent labours and mighty wanderings he was 
a crippled man, with one arm so maimed that it was 
painful to lift a gun or raise his left hand to his head- 
He soon found a comforter, for on going to Kuru- 
man to recruit his health he became engaged to Dr. 
Moffat's eldest daughter, Mary. They were married 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE, EXPLORER 57 

shortly afterwards and spent at Mabotsa the first happy 
year of their married life. In 1846 the Livingstones 
moved to Chonuane, where was the kraal of Sechele, 
the chief of the Bak wains. Drought, however, soon 
compelled the removal of the tribe to Kolobeng, which 
was Livingstone's home till he set out on his great 
journey across Africa in 1852. It was the only home 
he ever had, and when, twenty years after, in his lonely 
wanderings, he looked back to it with fond longing, he 
felt but one pang of regret, that he had not played with 
his children more when he had them, now he had none 
to play with. He had usually been so tired at night, he 
says pathetically, that there was no fun left in him. 

The chief, Sechele, on first hearing the Gospel, was 
much affected and asked Livingstone, "How is it that 
your forefathers did not send to my forefathers news 
of these things sooner?" Surely a pertinent question, 
and one not easily answered. He became an eager 
learner, and in 1848 made open profession of his 
Christian faith. His subsequent career, however, ren- 
dered that profession of doubtful value, for, though 
he became extraordinarily well versed in Scripture and 
preached with earnestness, he still persisted in some 
heathen practices. The spirit of Livingstone's min- 
istry may be gathered from a sentence in a letter to 
his father, written in July, 1848. "For a long time I 
felt much depressed after preaching the unsearchable 
riches of Christ to apparently insensible hearts, but 
now I like to dwell on the love of the great Mediator, 
for it always warms my own heart, and I know that 
the Gospel is the power of God, the great means 
that He employs for the regeneration of our ruined 



58 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

world." It may be said, once for all, that he held this 
conviction to the last, and never ceased to be a mis- 
sionary-preacher of this evangel. 

During this period Livingstone's eyes were continu- 
ally directed towards the north. The country around 
Kolobeng was barren and thinly populated, while the 
security of the inhabitants was threatened from the 
east and northeast by the Boers and the Matabele. 
There were reports of more fertile and populous re- 
gions beyond the Kalahari Desert to the north, where 
a powerful chief, Sebituane, had established himself. 
Sechele was willing to remove his tribe thither if it 
were found feasible. No doubt also Livingstone had 
a laudable ambition to be the first white man to reach 
the rumoured lake in the interior, which up till then 
had baffled repeated and determined attempts of ex- 
plorers from the Cape. 

Accordingly he set out from Kolobeng with two 
English hunters, Mr. Oswell and Mr. Murray, and af- 
ter an arduous journey across the desert reached Lake 
Ngami on August I, 1849. The discovery of this 
lake, though eclipsed by Livingstone's subsequent 
achievements, was a remarkable feat, and gained for 
him a grant from the Royal Geographical Society. A 
vague impression prevailed that the centre of Africa 
was one vast desert. The Kalahari was spoken of as 
the Southern Sahara. Yet here, in the heart of it, 
was an extensive fresh water lake, with a fine river 
watering a fertile plain. Sebituane's country, however, 
was still farther to the north. Next year Livingstone 
again set out from Kuruman, with his wife and chil- 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE, EXPLORER 59 

dren and Mr. Oswell, but owing to fever they were 
not able to penetrate beyond Lake Ngami. 

A third attempt, in 1851, was successful, and re- 
sulted in the discovery of a glorious river, known to 
the natives as the Sesheke or Liambai, which proved 
to be the upper Zambesi. Here Sebituane had es- 
tablished himself and ruled over a wide domain. His 
career had been a romantic one. Born in Basutoland,- 
he was one of the leaders of the wild horde of Mantiti 
who were routed at Kuruman by the Griquas in 1821. 
Pursuing his way north with a shattered remnant of 
his people, the Makololo as they came to be called, he 
conquered the Barotsi who inhabited the wide valley 
of the Zambesi, and imposed on them the language of 
the Basutos. This afterwards had a remarkable in- 
fluence in leading to the evangelisation of the country 
by M. Coillard. 

Sebituane gave Livingstone a hearty welcome, but 
very shortly afterwards he took ill and died. Living- 
stone was deeply moved by his death, both on personal 
grounds and because it seemed to imperil the vast en- 
terprise which had now taken definite shape in his mind 
and became, henceforth, the master passion of his life. 

Ill : The Road to the North 

This enterprise was the opening up of Central Africa 
to civilisation and the Gospel. Various influences, act- 
ing on his mind since he landed in Africa, had combined 
to turn his thoughts in this direction, till at last it grew 
to an invincible conviction that here was the divinely 
appointed path for him. For one thing, he early took 



60 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

the view that the number of missionaries in the Colony 
was excessive in proportion to the population and in 
view of the vast needs of Africa. In 1843 we find him 
making strong representations to the London Mission- 
ary Society on the subject. He held that the European 
missionary should continually advance to the occupa- 
tion of new fields, leaving his work to be followed up 
by native teachers. This policy was opposed by many 
missionaries of experience, and it must be admitted 
that time has not altogether confirmed Livingstone's 
high estimate of the efficiency of the native teacher, 
and especially of his power to work alone. 

Another influence was the difficulty of transport. 
Pondering the problem of a farther advance into the 
interior, Livingstone could not but see, as Moffat had 
seen before him, that the limit of expansion north- 
ward from the Cape had been reached. No Cape to 
Cairo railway was then so much as dreamed of, and the 
tedious ox wagon, consuming months in the journey 
from Cape Town, and now faced with the terrible 
Kalahari Desert, obviously could do no more. Ac- 
cordingly we find Livingstone writing in 1850, "When 
we burst through the barrier on the north, it appeared 
very plain that no mission could be successful there, 
unless we could get a well watered country having 
a passage to the sea on either the east or west coast. 
This project I am almost afraid to meet, but nothing 
else will do." 

Another determining influence was the attitude of 
the Boers of the Transvaal. It may appear incredible 
that men calling themselves Protestant Christians, de- 
scendants also of the persecuted Church of the Neth- 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE, EXPLORER 61 

erlands, should have acted as these Boers did. But 
they were, in the main, composed of the most igno- 
rant and brutal elements of the Dutch colonists, who 
had trekked into the wilds to escape from contact with 
civilisation. They believed themselves to be God's 
chosen people, and the natives they regarded as the 
Canaanites, to be dispossessed, slaughtered and en- 
slaved. There was a vague impression among them 
that the Promised Land was somewhere to the north 
and might one day be reached by their wagons. With 
such views they became the determined opponents of 
missions to the natives, and were resolved to close the 
road to the north both to the missionary and to the 
trader. Accordingly they ordered the Bechuanas to 
stop all white travellers going through their country 
and threatened to attack any tribe that would receive 
a native teacher. "The Boers," writes Livingstone, 
' 'resolved to shut up the interior, and I determined to 
open the country, and we shall see who have been most 
successful in resolution — they or I." Truly we shall 
see. 

Being thus resolved, Livingstone returned to Kolo- 
beng to make preparations for his great adventure. 
First he travelled to Cape Town with his family to 
send them home to Scotland, and to procure necessary 
supplies for himself. When Mrs. Livingstone and the 
four children sailed from Cape Town on April 23, 
1852, Livingstone saw the final breaking up of his 
home. Malicious tongues whispered in after years that 
his home life had never been happy, a slander which 
caused both him and his wife the keenest pain. The 
following letter, written shortly after their separation, 



62 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

may be quoted for its exquisite beauty and to show the 
tenderness of their love." 

"My dearest Mary, How I miss you now, and the 
dear children ! My heart yearns incessantly over you. 
You have been a great blessing to me. May God bless 
you 'for all your kindnesses! I see no face now to be 
compared to that sunburnt one which has so often 
greeted me with its kind looks. Let us do our duty 
to our Saviour, and we shall meet again. I wish that 
time were now. You may read the letters over again 
which I wrote at Mabotsa, the sweet time you know. 
As I told you before, I tell you again, they are true, 
true. There is not a bit of hypocrisy in them. I never 
show all my feelings, but I can say truly, my dearest, 
that I loved you when I married you, and the longer 
I lived with you, I loved you the better. . . . Take the 
children round you and kiss them for me. Tell them 
I have left them for the love of Jesus, and they must 
love him too. ,, 

Not every husband would bid his wife read over 
again his old love letters, and stand to every word of 
them, nor are there many wives, perhaps, who would 
break into a rapturous poetic welcome on their hus- 
band's return, as did Mary Moffat when Livingstone 
came home in 1856. 

On the 8th of June Livingstone left the Cape in 
his wagon and reached Kuruman at the end of Au- 
gust. Here he was detained by the breaking of a 
wagon wheel — fortunately, as it proved. For news ar- 
rived that the Boers, under Pretorius, had attacked 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE, EXPLORER 63 

Kolobeng, burned the town and killed or captured the 
people. Had Livingstone been at home at the time of 
the attack he would probably have been killed, for Pre- 
torius had threatened to take his life. He would cer- 
tainly have lost all his stores. The Boers left his home 
a wreck. "My house," he writes, "which had stood 
perfectly secure for years under the protection of the 
natives, was plundered. . . . The books of a good 
library — my solace in our solitude, — were not taken 
away, but handfuls of the leaves were torn out and 
scattered over the place. My stock of medicines was 
smashed, and all our furniture and clothing carried off 
and sold at public auction to pay the expenses of the 
foray." 

After this outrage Livingstone was more deter- 
mined than ever "to open a path through the country 
or perish!" Leaving Kuruman and making a wide de- 
tour to the west to avoid the Boers, he once more crossed 
the Kalahari Desert and in June, 1853, reached Lin- 
yanti, the capital of the Makololo country. It is situ- 
ated on the Chobe, a tributary of the Zambesi, about 
a hundred miles south of that river. Here Livingstone 
was welcomed by Sekeletu, the son of his old friend 
Sebituane, and he speedily acquired great influence over 
the young chief and his people. After a month spent 
at Linyanti he persuaded Sekeletu to accompany him 
on a tour through the Barotsi country. Having crossed 
the intervening flat, they struck the Zambesi at Sesheke, 
some miles west of where the town of Livingstone now 
stands, and embarking in canoes they sailed a consid- 
erable distance up the river. No healthy site for a 
mission station, however, could be found. The whole 



64 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

country was a vast plain, inundated annually by the 
river, and choked with rank vegetation which made it 
unhealthy at all seasons. After nine weeks a return 
was made to Linyanti. Of his experiences at this time 
Livingstone wrote, "I have been, during a nine weeks' 
tour, in closer contact with heathenism than I had ever 
been before, and though all, including the chief, were 
as kind and attentive to me as possible, yet to endure 
the dancing, roaring, and singing, the jesting, anec- 
dotes, grumbling, quarrelling, and murdering of these 
children of nature, seemed more like a severe penance 
than anything I had before met with in the course of 
my missionary duties. I. took thence a more intense 
disgust at heathenism than before, and formed a greatly 
elevated opinion of the latent effects of missions in 
the south, among tribes which are reported to have 
been as savage as the Makololo." 

IV : Crossing the Continent 

The more daring scheme of opening a way to the 
west coast caught the imagination of Sekeletu and his 
people, and it should never be forgotten that only by 
their help was Livingstone enabled to cross the con- 
tinent. After discussion in the tribal assembly twenty- 
seven men were appointed to accompany him. They 
became famous as his Makololo, but he more correctly 
calls them Zambesians, for only two of the number 
were genuine Makololo, the rest were Barotsi and 
other natives of the valley. The plan proposed by 
Livingstone was to ascend the Zambesi as far as pos- 
sible, and from its head waters to strike northwest to 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE, EXPLORER 65 

Loanda on the coast. A nearer point on the coast was 
Benguela, but in that direction Portuguese slave 
traders had been active, and Livingstone knew it to be 
dangerous to follow in their track. 

The journey from Linyanti to Loanda occupied six 
and a half months, from November n, 1853, to May 
31, 1854. It was the greatest feat of African travel 
yet accomplished, and displayed to the full Living- 
stone's extraordinary qualities as an explorer. His 
journal records an interminable succession of tribes and 
villages, never before visited by a white man. After 
ascending the Zambesi and the Leeba by canoe the 
carriers advanced on foot, while Livingstone rode as 
much as possible on oxback. The rainy season had 
now set in and they found immense flats where the 
water stood knee deep in the grass. Some of these 
were as much as twenty miles in width. Across these 
flats they had perforce to wade, sometimes for days on 
end, under pitiless rain and with an occasional flooded 
river to swim. Throughout the whole journey Liv- 
ingstone suffered from recurrent attacks of fever, and 
sometimes lay in his hut unconscious. He has been ' 
blamed for gross disregard of his health, in travelling 
without proper camp equipment, subsisting on native 
food, and often sleeping on the ground in wet clothes. 
It may be replied that he had to do his work with the 
resources at his disposal, and no other traveller, even 
with the best of equipment, has equalled his record. 
Careless he was not, nor slow to learn by experience. 
Having felt the chilling, depressing influence of heavy 
rain, especially upon the naked bodies of the men, he 
taught them to take shelter or to make a rude thatch 



66 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

of grass for their backs when the rain came on, and 
had fewer cases of fever in consequence. "A mission- 
ary," he wrote, "must never forget that, in the tropics, 
he is an exotic plant. In a hot climate efficiency mainly 
depends on husbanding the resources." 

The tribes through whose country he passed were in 
general disposed to be friendly when treated with cour- 
tesy and enlightened as to the object of the journey. 
Some, however, were tyrannous and threatening. It 
has been claimed for Livingstone, as the brightest star 
in his crown, that he crossed Africa without firing an 
angry shot. There were moments on this journey when 
that record came perilously near being broken. Some- 
times a demand was made for "a gun, an ox, or a man." 
Occasionally an ox had to be surrendered, but Living- 
stone declared that before he would sell one of his men 
they would all die together. He was no pacifist. "We 
would do almost anything," he says, "to avoid a collision 
with degraded natives, but in the case of an invasion — 
our blood boils at the very thought of our wives, daugh- 
ters, or sisters being touched — we, as men with human 
feelings, would unhesitatingly fight to the death, with 
all the fury in our power." 

Throughout these trials and perils the Makololo be- 
haved admirably on the whole. Only once, when Liv- 
ingstone was down with fever, did some of them show 
a spirit of mutiny, but his sudden appearance from 
the hut, haggard and angry, with his pistols in his 
hands, quelled the malcontents in a moment. In the 
Chiboque country a hostile chief tried to pick a quar- 
rel by alleging that one of the carriers, in spitting, had 
touched one of his people. Extravagant demands were 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE, EXPLORER 67 

made for compensation, and savage warriors danced 
round threateningly. Livingstone sat with his double- 
barrelled gun across his knees, ready to fire at the first 
attack. At length, by patience and tact and the peace- 
offering of an ox, the danger was surmounted. As 
they neared Portuguese territory the local chiefs be- 
came more troublesome in their demands. They had 
been accustomed to exact tribute from the slave traders 
who, being encumbered with gangs of unwilling cap- 
tives, were glad to pay a heavy price for permission to 
proceed coastwise with their booty. These traders, 
though called Portuguese, were half-castes with woolly 
hair. Livingstone's men were careful to point out to 
the natives that he alone was a genuine specimen of 
"the white men who come out of the sea." "Look at 
his hair," they said, "washed straight by the water!" 
A steep descent from the plateau of the interior, 
through narrow glens, brought the travellers to the 
fine valley of the Quango. With some difficulty they 
crossed the river and set foot on Portuguese territory. 
Here they received a most kindly welcome from Cypri- 
ano, a young half-caste Portuguese sergeant of militia. 
This was the first instance of that warm hearted hos- 
pitality which Livingstone received from the Portu- 
guese as he travelled down to the coast, a hospitality 
which did much to restore his shattered health, and 
which moved him to expressions of the deepest grati- 
tude. At last the ocean came in sight. Unlike Xeno- 
phon's men, who hailed the familiar sight with joy, 
Livingstone's followers were struck dumb with awe. 
Describing their feelings afterwards they said, "We 
marched along with our father, believing that what the 



68 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

ancients had always told us was true, that the world 
has no end. But all at once the world said to us, 'I am 
finished, there is no more of me.' " 

Livingstone entered Loanda little better than a walk- 
ing skeleton, but he found a home in the house of Mr. 
Gabriel, the British consul, and in a few minutes was 
enjoying delicious sleep in an English bed. He after- 
wards had a severe and prolonged relapse, but on re- 
covering he was thankful to find that he was free from 
lassitude and like his old self again. He was now of- 
fered a passage home in a British warship but he de- 
clined the tempting offer. He knew that the Makalolo 
would be quite unable to make their way back alone 
through the hostile tribes on the way, and he felt him- 
self in honour bound to take them home to their chief. 
His journey also had proved that there was no prac- 
ticable route for wagons to the west coast. He there- 
fore resolved to return to the interior with the view of 
trying to find a path to the east coast by following the 
course of the Zambesi. As we shall see, this scrupu- 
lous honour in restoring his men to their homes had 
its exact counterpart and recompense when those who 
followed him in his last journey, led by two Zam- 
besians, Susi and Chuma, carried his body for nine 
months to the coast, in order to deliver it to his people. 

The return journey from Loanda to the interior oc- 
cupied a year, from September, 1854, to September, 
1855. A considerable part of that time, however, was 
spent in the hinterland of the Portuguese colony, where 
Livingstone, on hearing of the wreck of the mailboat in 
which he had sent home his letters, maps and journals, 
sat down and patiently reproduced the whole of them 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE, EXPLORER 69 

before he buried himself once more in the wilds. Then 
he led his men homewards. On reaching their own 
people in Zambesi valley they had a great ovation, and 
little wonder. For had they not gone to the ends of 
the earth and returned safe, with not a man missing? 
In the neighbourhood of Sesheke Livingstone had the 
pleasure of finding some packages of goods which Dr. 
Moffat had succeeded in sending north a year before 
by Matabele carriers and which had been safely stored 
on an island in the river. Sekeletu was delighted with 
the results of the expedition, opening, as it did, the pros- 
pect of peaceful commerce with the white man. He 
therefore readily entered into Livingstone's plan of find- 
ing a path to the east coast by following the Zambesi 
to the sea. 

After six weeks spent in preparation, the new expe- 
dition started from Linyanti on November 3, 1855, 
and the east coast was reached at Quilimane on May 
21, 1856. This second and more numerous caravan, 
like the first, was equipped at the expense of the chief. 
Livingstone cordially acknowledges this. "The Mako- 
lolo again fitted me out. I was thus dependent on their 
bounty, and that of other Africans, for the means of 
going from Linyanti to Loanda, and again from Lin- 
yanti to the east coast, and I feel deeply grateful to 
them." No stronger proof could be given of Living- 
stone's extraordinary influence over the minds of the 
Africans, and it must ever redound to their honour that 
the greatest and most successful of all his journeys was 
accomplished by their help alone. 

Sekeletu convoyed Livingstone for the first part of 
tKe way, and together they visited the Falls of the 



70 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

Zambesi, a greater and in every respect more wonder- 
ful Niagara, as every traveller who has seen both will 
at once admit. Livingstone had heard from the natives 
the fame of the place "where smoke sounds," a place 
which they shunned with superstitious awe. Now he 
saw it for the first time and bestowed the name of the 
Victoria Falls. Here the mighty river, more than a mile 
wide, flowing through an open plain, is suddenly pre- 
cipitated headlong into a narrow ravine, four hundred 
feet deep, where its waters are tortured and pulver- 
ised till clouds of steam rush up from the abyss, 
and tower in lofty pillars to the sky. How little could 
Livingstone have imagined that in less than fifty years 
the gorge would be bridged and the thunder of express 
trains would mingle with the solemn sound of the fall- 
ing water! So swiftly fruitful has been his work of 
opening Central Africa. 

The route chosen was along the north bank of the 
Zambesi, because on the map Tette, the farthest up- 
river setlement of the Portuguese, was erroneously 
marked as on that side of the river. Livingstone had 
therefore to cross the Kafue and the Loangwa, two 
considerable tributaries which flow from the north, 
and then he had to cross the Zambesi itself in order to 
reach Tette. As on the journey to Loanda, so here 
he found the tribes more hostile in the vicinity of Por- 
tuguese territory. At the crossing of the Loangwa the 
whole expedition seemed in imminent danger of an- 
nihilation. Livingstone passed a troubled night, as the 
following entry in his journal shows. "Felt much tur- 
moil of spirit in view of having all my plans for the 
welfare of this great region and teeming population 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE, EXPLORER 71 

knocked on the head by savages to-morrow. But I 
read that Jesus came and said, 'All power is given unto 
me in heaven and in earth. Go yet therefore and teach 
all nations — and lo, / am with you alway, even unto 
the end of the world.' It is the word of a gentleman 
of the most sacred and strictest honour, and there's an 
end on't. I will not cross furtively by night as I in- 
tended. It would appear as flight, and should such a 
man as I flee? Nay, verily, I shall take observations 
for latitude and longitude to-night, though they may 
be the last. I feel quite calm now, thank God." 

Once again faith was justified, tact and patience pre- 
vailed, and the crossing was made in safety. On reach- 
ing Tette Livingstone was received with the same 
kindness as he had experienced on the west coast at the 
hands of the Portuguese. Here he left his Makololo 
carriers, promising that only death would hinder his re- 
turn from England to take them home again. Travel- 
ling down the river he reached the coast at Quilimane, 
and thus completed his great, transcontinental journey. 
It was an achievement such as could not have been con- 
sidered possible till it was actually done, and when the 
whole circumstances are taken account of, it must be 
reckoned the greatest feat of exploration ever accom- 
plished. One does not know which to admire most, 
the iron constitution and resolute will of the man, or 
his patient courtesy and good sense, or his sanity and 
humour, or his dauntless faith. All combined in a 
wonderful degree to make Livingstone the man he was 
and to enable him to do the work he did. It was said of 
him, even in his student days, "Fire, water, and a stone 
wall would not stop Livingstone in the fulfilment of 



72 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

any recognised duty." Yet with all his natural strength 
he could be infinitely patient and tactful, even when 
half delirious with fever; and at every step of the road 
he sought the guidance and grace of God. No text 
seems to have, been more frequently in his mind than 
the words of the Psalm, "Commit thy way unto the 
Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass." 

V : Discouraged and Lionised 

At Quilimane Livingstone received a letter from the 
directors of the London Missionary Society informing 
him that they were restricted in aiding "plans only re- 
motely connected with the spread of the Gospel," and 
that finances would not permit of the opening of a new 
field in the interior. It is easy to understand the 
scruples of the Directors. The Society's rules were not 
made to fit a Livingstone, any more than a hen run is 
built to fit an eagle, and it could not yet be foreseen how 
powerful an influence on missionary work Living- 
stone's travels were to exert. But naturally he felt 
deeply grieved and wrote to the secretary, "I had 
imagined in my simplicity that both my preaching, con- 
versation, and travel were as nearly connected with the 
spread of the Gospel as the Boers would allow them to 
be. A plan of opening up a path from either the east 
or west coast for the teeming population of the interior 
was submitted to the judgment of the Directors, and 
received their formal approval. I have been seven times 
in peril of my life from savage men while laboriously 
and without swerving pursuing that plan, and never 
doubting that I was in the path of duty." He now felt 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE, EXPLORER 73 

that he must be free to do his work in his own way, 
under the strong conviction that he was so led of God. 
His relation with the Society, however, continued cor- 
dial, and when the mission to the Matabele was organ- 
ised, Livingstone, now a British consul, made himself 
responsible for the salary of John Moffat, his brother- 
in-law, for five years, besides paying his outfit. This 
fact is witness, if witness be needed, that in Living- 
stone's life, from first to last, the missionary interest 
was supreme. 

Livingstone reached London in December, 1856, and 
was at home till March, 1858. As was to be expected 
he was lionised in all circles, religious and political, 
scientific and commercial. Honours were showered 
upon him and he was hailed everywhere as the national 
hero. His book, Travels and Researches in South 
Africa, was a great success, and brought him in sev- 
eral thousands of pounds, most of which he devoted 
to the furtherance of his work. An appeal which he 
made at Cambridge led to the founding of the Uni- 
versities' Mission. In February, 1858, he was ap- 
pointed British consul for the east coast of Africa, and' 
commander of an expedition for exploring Central Af- 
rica. This glittering hour of fame left him quite un- 
spoiled, the same rugged, simple-hearted missionary he 
had been at Kolobeng. At a banquet given in his 
honour before he left England some reference was 
made to his wife, when Livingstone, addressing a most 
illustrious audience, said with great plainness, "My 
wife will accompany me in this expedition and will be 
most useful to me. She is able to work. She is willing 
to endure, and she well knows that in that country one 



74 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

must put one's hand to everything. She knows that at 
the missionary's station the wife must be the maid of 
all work within, while the husband must be the jack of 
all trades without, and glad am I indeed that I am to 
be accompanied by my guardian angel." 

VI : Five Years on the Zambesi 

The expedition left England in March, 1858, and 
reached the mouth of the Zambesi on the 14th of May. 
Here they put together the little steamer, the Ma-Rob- 
bert, with which they were to navigate the river. Liv- 
ingstone was now to encounter difficultes and troubles 
to which he had previously been a stranger, and in ad- 
dition there fell upon him and the cause he had at heart 
a succession of disasters. His position as British con- 
sul did not smooth his way with the Portuguese author- 
ities who began to suspect political aims, and, under se- 
cret orders from Portugal, did their utmost to obstruct 
his work. Some friction arose among the members 
of the expedition, not all of whom shared his ideals. 
The naval officer in charge of the steamer resigned, 
and Livingstone himself was compelled to undertake 
the duties of navigation. The steamer proved to be 
of wretched construction, and so utterly useless that 
Livingtsone sent home an order for another boat to 
be built at his own expense. His two most loyal help- 
ers were Dr. Kirk (afterwards Sir John Kirk) and Mr. 
E. D. Young of the Royal Navy. With their aid he 
explored the course of the Shire, a tributary of the 
Zambesi which flows down from the south end of Lake 
Nyasa. This led to the discovery of the Shire High- 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE, EXPLORER 75 

lands, the healthiest and most promising region yet . 
found in Central Africa. Passing through these hills 
Livingstone, in successive journeys, discovered Lake 
Shirwa and Lake Nyasa, and was confirmed in his 
view that here was the finest field for missionary en- 
terprise and commercial development. That this view 
was sound has been fully demonstrated since then, by 
the success of the Livingstonia Mission and the pros- 
perity of Nyasaland. 

Returning to the Zambesi Livingstone took the Ma- 
kololo, or as many of them as wished to return, back 
to their home at Linyanti. Here, to his great grief, he 
learned that the mission party sent north from Kuru- 
man to establish themselves among the Makololo, had 
been almost wiped out by fever. The story of this 
catastrophe is fully told by John Mackenzie, who res- 
cued the survivors. Livingstone could not but feel 
that some responsibility rested on him, for the expe- 
dition had gone on his assurance of a friendly wel- - 
come from Sekeletu, and Sekeletu had shamefully 
robbed them and was even suspected of having poisoned 
them. 

In the beginning of 1861 Livingstone was back at 
the coast to welcome Bishop Mackenzie and the pio- 
neers of the Universities' Mission whom he helped to * 
settle at Magomero in the Shire Highlands. But dis- 
aster was again in store. The Bishop, who seems to 
have been somewhat forceful in his methods, went to 
war with some slave-raiding tribes and blood was shed. 
Livingstone, with grave fears as to the future of the 
mission, went down to the mouth of the Zambesi to 



76 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

meet his wife who had come out to join him. With 
her came Bishop Mackenzie's sister and Mrs. Burrup, 
the wife of one of his colleagues. A young Scotsman, 
afterwards well known as Dr. Stewart of Lovedale, 
was also of the party, having been sent out to pros- 
pect for a suitable sphere for a Scottish mission. It 
was a happy and hopeful meeting, but the sky was 
speedily overcast. They had not gone far up the river 
when news came that Bishop Mackenzie and Mr. Bur- 
rup were both dead, and, soon after, the whole mission 
was withdrawn to Zanzibar. It was a deathblow to one 
of Livingstone's fondest hopes. 

There followed a sorrow that touched him more 
deeply. He had found a temporary home for his wife 
in a Portuguese house at Shupanga, a pleasant spot on 
the summit of a rising ground that slopes up gently 
from the river on its southern bank. Here the long 
separated husband and wife spent a few happy weeks 
together. Livingstone wrote afterwards, "In our inter- 
course in private there was more than what would be 
thought by some a decorous amount of merriment and 
play. I said to her a few days before her fatal illness, 
'We old bodies ought now to be more sober, and not 
play so much.' 'Oh, no,' she said, 'you must always be 
as playful as you have always been, I would not like, 
you to be as grave as some folks I have seen.' ' On 
the 2 1 st of April, Mrs. Livingstone became ill and she 
died on the 27th, "at the close of a long, clear, hot day, 
the last Sabbath of April, 1862." She was buried a 
little to the east of the house where she died and a 
simple headstone, with an inscription on the one side in 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE, EXPLORER 77 

English, on the other side in Portuguese, marks the 
spot. The grave has become the centre of a small 
burying ground which is surrounded by a cactus hedge 
and contains some half dozen graves, mostly Portu- 
guese. 

Livingstone was heartbroken, and for the first 
time in his life he felt himself willing to die. In his 
book, The Zambesi and its Tributaries, he refers to his 
bereavement with great restraint, and closes with a sim- 
ple, "Fiat, Domine, voluntas tual" In his private jour- 
nal and in his letters to his friends he pours out his 
heart. "I wept over her who well deserved many tears. 
I loved her when I married her, and the longer I lived 
with her I loved her the more. Oh, my Mary, my 
Mary! how often have we longed for a quiet home, 
since you and I were cast adrift at Kolobeng. Surely 
the removal by a kind Father who knoweth our frame 
means that He rewarded you by taking you to the best 
home, the eternal one in the heavens." In spite of these 
crushing sorrows Livingstone heroically continued his 
work. Sailing up the Shire he proceeded to take his 
new boat, the Lady Nyasa, to pieces, in order to carry 
it past the Murchison cataracts so that he might launch 
it on the upper river and steam into the Lake. While 
thus engaged he received a government despatch from 
Earl Russell, intimating the recall of the expedition. 
Even in this moment of disappointment he was keen 
to do the utmost possible, and before retiring he made 
a hurried journey westward to the Loangwa valley. 
Then, rejoining the boat, he led the expedition back to 
the coast. 



78 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

VII : The Slave Trade 

The five years' work on the Zambesi, from 1858 to 
1863, had yielded important results in the discovery 
and opening up of hitherto unknown regions. But 
the hideous shadow of the slave trade increasingly 
threw a gloom over all. Livingstone found that the 
slavers turned his discoveries to their own account. 
They followed in his track and even represented them- 
selves as "Livingstone's children." The infamous traf- 
fic grew to vast dimensions, and populous districts in 
the interior were being swept bare. Tens of thou- 
sands of slaves were annually marched in fetters to the 
coast, many of whom were murdered in cold blood or 
left to perish by the way. The soul of Livingstone 
was moved to its very depths, and he resolved to re- 
turn to England to fight this fearful traffic to the death 
and expose the heartless policy of the Portuguese who, 
while claiming as their own vast countries over which 
they never had control, were really keeping the ring 
for the slave raider. 

But first he had the Lady Nyasa to dispose of. Find- 
ing no other plan feasible he boldly sailed her across 
the Indian Ocean to Bombay, with only fourteen tons 
of coal in her bunker, and himself acting in the double 
capacity of captain and engineer. It was perhaps the 
most foolhardy thing that Livingstone ever did. 

From July, 1864, to August, 1865, Livingstone was 
at home striving to rouse England to an interest in the 
woes of Africa. The Government maintained a diplo- 
matic reserve in view of the hostility of Portugal, but 
the nation gained a new knowledge of the nefarious 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE, EXPLORER 79 

traffic which was bleeding Central Africa to death. 
Livingstone's eyes were continually turned towards 
that unhappy region. His own idea of his future work 
was to return and endeavour to open up the country 
around the Lakes, from some point on the coast, north 
of Portuguese territory. The Geographical Society pro- 
posed that he should try to determine the position of 
the watershed of Central Africa. While greatly attracted 
by this problem, Livingstone replied that he could only 
feel in the way of duty by working as a missionary. 
In the end he went out, aided by grants of £500 each 
from the Government and the Royal Geographical So- 
ciety, supplemented by £1000 from a private friend. 
He held the rank of honorary consul without salary, 
and with a warning to expect no pension ! For the rest 
he must trust to his own resources and his own great 
heart. 

VIII : Seven Years of Wandering 

He left England, in August, 1865, never to return. 
At Bombay he sold the Lady Nyasa, which had cost 
him £6000, for £2300, but this sum was soon after en- 
tirely lost through the failure of an Indian bank. His 
friend, Sir Bartle Frere, Governor of Bombay, gave 
assistance in fitting out the expedition, and commis- 
sioned Livingstone to present a steamer to the Sultan 
of Zanzibar. The Sultan, having received the gift, 
granted a letter of recommendation to his subjects in 
the interior. The expedition, when at length it was 
put ashore in Africa, consisted of a motley assemblage 
of beasts and men. Six camels, four buffaloes, two 



SO THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

mules and four donkeys were brought from India, in 
the hope that some, if not all of them, would prove im- 
mune from the bite of the tsetse fly. From India also 
came thirteen sepoys and nine Nassick boys, who 
proved to be worthless. Ten Johanna men were little 
better. The bright stars of the expedition were two 
Zambesians, Susi and Chuma, whose devotion has made 
their names immortal. 

It would be impossible to follow Livingstone through 
the bewildering maze of his seven last years of wan- 
dering. The interest of his geographical achievements, 
great as it is, is eclipsed by the tale of his unparalleled 
sufferings and deathless heroism. From the first, mis- 
fortune seemed to dog his steps. The sepoys and Nas- 
sick boys had to be dismissed after they had, by their 
carelessness and cruelty, killed the beasts of burden. 
At Lake Nyasa no means of crossing was to be found, 
and this necessitated a long detour round its southern 
end. At this point the Johanna men lost heart and 
deserted. On reaching the coast they related a most 
circumstantial story that Livingstone had been mur- 
dered by the natives and that they had buried him. 
This story was widely accepted, but Mr. E. D. Young, 
who knew by experience what liars they were, ex- 
pressed his disbelief and proved it by a rapid journey 
up the Shire, where he gathered sufficient information 
to show that Livingstone was alive and had passed 
away to the west. 

From this point Livingstone's trail on the map bends 
and doubles and twists about in a seemingly aimless 
fashion, and raises the question of what was his ob- 
jective. The answer is supplied by the configuration 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE, EXPLORER 81 

of the country he was exploring. West of Lake Nyasa, 
beyond the Loangwa valley, the watershed of Central 
Africa, now known as the great plateau of North- 
eastern Rhodesia, runs almost due north and south. 
On its western side the Congo takes its rise, and be- 
gins to crawl like a gigantic snake across the con- 
tinent. First, under the name of the Chambesi, it 
flows southward to Lake Bangweolo, creating the 
impression that it will turn out to be a tributary of the 
Zambesi. Issuing out of the other end of Lake Bang- 
weolo as the Luapula, it flows directly north to Lake 
Mweru, passing through which, it continues its north- 
erly course as the Lualaba, and raises a strong pre- 
sumption that it will prove to be the Nile. Gradually, 
however, it bends round to the northwest, then to the 
west, then to the southwest, and finally declares itself 
at the Atlantic as the Congo. All beautifully plain 
now upon the map, but in Livingstone's day the un- 
discovered secret of African waterways, to be painfully 
searched for through a maze of tropical forests and 
malarial swamps. Livingstone, with infinite toil and 
travail, was groping about for the solution of this 
problem, hoping in his heart of hearts that he might 
be laying bare the historic fountains of the Nile. 

Early in the journey his health broke down and he 
suffered untold agonies from constantly recurring 
fever, dysentery and bleeding of the bowels. His feet, 
too, gave way and became ulcerated. In fact, he had 
now but the shattered ruins of a once magnificent con- 
stitution. Worst of all, one of the carriers bolted with 
his medicine chest. "I felt," he writes, "as if I had now 
received the sentence of death." Yet he doggedly 



82 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

plodded on. On the last day of 1866 he writes in his 
diary, "Will try to do better in 1867, and be better — 
more gentle and loving, and may the Almighty, to 
whom I commit my way, bring my desires to pass and 
prosper me. Let all the sins of '66 be blotted out for 
Jesus' sake." In 1867 he reached Lake Tanganyika 
and, striking westward, discovered Lake Mweru. 
Everywhere he found the ravages of the slave trade, 
yet he seems to have got on fairly well with some of 
the traders, and one of them in particular showed him 
no small kindness. 

On New Year's Day, 1868, he writes, "If I am to die 
this year, prepare me for it." He had now determined 
to turn back to Ujiji, on the east side of Lake Tan- 
ganyika, where he hoped to get letters from home and 
stores which he had ordered to be sent up from the 
coast. But first he went south and discovered Lake 
Bangweolo, then back towards Tanganyika, prostrate 
with fever and almost at death's door. It is certain he 
would never have reached Ujiji but for the help of an 
Arab trader, Mohamad Bogharib, who had him borne 
along in a litter. Crossing the Lake he reached Ujiji 
only to find that the stores sent from the coast had al- 
most all disappeared, while of all his letters only one 
was left. Having written to the coast for fresh sup- 
plies, and appealed to the Sultan of Zanzibar for pro- 
tection against the systematic robbery of his goods, 
Livingstone resolved, with such resources as he had, to 
cross Lake Tanganyika and strike northwest to the 
Manyuema country, in order to determine the course 
of the Lualaba. 

For two years he was lost in the wilds and the world , 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE, EXPLORER 83 

came to believe that he was dead. His letters never 
reached the coast. On one occasion forty were dis- 
patched but all were lost. Part of this time was con- 
sumed by a long illness, when he was unable to leave 
his hut for months. There were incessant delays owing 
to the disturbed state of the country, due to slave raid- 
ing. At one time all his men deserted except the faith- 
ful Susi and Chuma and another. In his loneliness he 
found constant solace in his Bible which he read through 
four times. 

It wore on to 1871. "O Father," he writes, "help 
me to finish this work to Thy glory." In July of this 
year he was witness of a fearful massacre. The slav- 
ers suddenly attacked a native town on market day, 
shot down hundreds of defenceless people, and drove 
many more into the river. The story of this dreadful 
day, when at last it reached England, did more than 
anything else to rouse the conscience of the nation to a 
stern resolve that these atrocities must cease. 

IX : Stanley 

Livingstone returned to Ujiji on October 23, 1871, 
"a mere ruckle of bones," as he says. Again he met 
with bitter disappointment. The stores he had ordered 
from the coast and which he so urgently needed, had 
all been made away with in the belief that he was 
dead. He found himself destitute and at his wits' end. 
Five days later help reached him, as suddenly and as 
providentially as if it had dropped from the sky. On 
the morning of the 28th Susi rushed in gasping out 
that he had seen an Englishman. It was H. M. Stanley, 



84 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

a name second only to Livingstone's in the history of 
African exploration. He had been sent out by the New 
York Herald to find Livingstone dead or alive and 
bring him home. His appearance was as an angel of 
mercy, for he came abundantly supplied with stores 
and medicines. Livingstone revived marvellously in 
health and spirits. "You have brought me new life," 
he kept saying. The two men were together for about 
six months, and explored the north end of Lake Tan- 
ganyika. In after years Stanley warmly acknowledged 
that his life had been profoundly influenced by the 
Christian nobility of Livingstone's character. He 
writes enthusiastically, "You may take any point in 
Dr. Livingstone's character, and I would challenge any 
man to find a fault in it. . . . His gentleness never 
forsakes him, his hopefulness never deserts him. No 
harassing anxieties, distraction of mind, long separa- 
tion from home and kindred, can make him complain. 
He thinks 'all will come out right at last,' he has such 
faith in the goodness of Providence. . . . His is the 
Spartan heroism, the inflexibility of the Roman, the 
enduring resolution of the Anglo-Saxon — never to 
relinquish his work, though his heart yearns for home, 
never to surrender his obligations until he can write 
FINIS to his work." 

Stanley had found Livingstone, but to bring him 
home was another matter. He was immovably fixed in 
his resolve. Accordingly it was agreed that Stanley, 
on returning to the coast, should send up dependable 
carriers with whose help Livingstone hoped to finish 
his task. Till then he refused to go home. Sir Harry 
Johnston in his biography of Livingstone, after a sus- 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE, EXPLORER 85 

tained attempt to represent him as a kind of smoking 
room hero who had unfortunately stumbled into a 
missionary career, makes at this point the fatuous sug- 
gestion that "posterity can only heave a sigh of vain 
regret over Livingstone's obstinacy in rejecting Stan- 
ley's advice." Among other possible advantages, had 
Livingstone returned to Europe with Stanley, "he 
might have lived many years longer, and died a baro- 
net!" Posterity may be trusted to think far other 
thoughts. Had Livingstone returned, one of the most 
inspiring chapters of human history would never have 
been written, and a life of Christlike devotion to down- 
trodden Africa would not have been crowned by a per- 
fect sacrifice. 

Livingstone had five months to wait for the arrival 
of Stanley's carriers. It was during this time that he 
wrote a letter to the New York Herald, in which oc- 
cur the famous words, now carved on his tomb in 
Westminster, "All I can add in my loneliness is, may 
Heaven's rich blessing come down on every one — 
American, English or Turk — who will help to heal the 
open sore of the world." On the 14th of August, 1872, 
the carriers arrived and proved thoroughly satisfactory, 
"I have a party of good men, selected by H. M, Stan- 
ley. A dutiful son could not have done more than he 
generously did. I bless him. The men, fifty-six in 
number, have behaved as well as the Makololo. I can- 
not award them higher praise." Among them was Ja- 
cob Wainwright, an educated Nassick boy, whose serv- 
ices at Livingstone's death and afterwards rank his 
name with those of Susi and Chuma. 



86 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

X : The Long Last Mile 

On the 25th of August Livingstone set out on his 
last journey. His plan was to circle round the south 
end of Lake Bangweolo, in order to make sure of tak- 
ing in all the sources of the river, and then to follow 
its course northwards. Having settled the question of 
whether it was the Nile or the Congo, he would then 
come home. Not to rest, however, but to expose the 
enormities of the slave trade, for this, more than the 
geographical problem, was his supreme interest. "If 
the good Lord permits me to put a stop to the enor- 
mous evils of the inland slave-trade, I shall not grudge 
my hunger and toils. The Nile sources are valuable 
to me only as a means of enabling me to open my 
mouth with power among men." It was not given him 
to carry out his plan. The main end he had in view 
was indeed attained, not by discovery as he had hoped, 
but far more effectually by the sacrifice of his life. He 
was one of those chosen ones to whom it is given, like 
God's own Son, to help the world most of all by their 
dying. 

Livingstone's strength was no longer equal to the 
task he had set himself. First baked by the intense 
heat, and then, after the rainy season came, drenched 
day after day, his health broke down completely. By 
the end of the year he had reached the neighbourhood of 
Lake Bangweolo. All the grassy flats for miles around 
the Lake were waterlogged, and among these inter- 
minable sponges Livingstone's party floundered for 
weeks. At last, too weak to walk, he was carried on 
the men's shoulders, and then in a rudely constructed 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE, EXPLORER 87 

machila. He notes, "this trip has made my hair all 
grey." It was the desperate struggle of a dying man, 
gifted with the most indomitable spirit that ever 
housed in mortal clay. On the 19th of March, his last 
birthday, he writes, "Thanks to the Almighty Preserver 
of men for sparing me thus far on the journey of life. 
Can I hope for ultimate success? So many obstacles 
have arisen. Let not Satan prevail over me, O my 
good Lord Jesus." A few days later he was crouching 
for shelter under an upturned canoe, miserably cold 
and wet, his tent torn with the wind and soaked. Then 
it was that he wrote the words, "Nothing earthly will 
make me give up my work in despair. I encourage 
myself in the Lord my God and go forward." 

Gradually he became too weak even to be carried. 
The last entry in his journal stands under the date, 
April 2j, "Knocked up quite and remain — recover — 
sent to buy milch goats. We are on the banks of R. 
Molilamo." Two days later he was moved a short 
distance to Chitambo's village where a hut was hastily 
built for him. Towards evening his mind wandered, 
but about midnight Susi brought him some hot water 
and he was able with great difficulty to mix some medi- 
cine for himself. Then he said faintly, "All right, you 
can go now." When the boy who slept in the hut with 
him awoke about four o'clock in the morning he found 
his master dead on his knees at the bedside. It was the 
1st (or perhaps more probably the 4th) of May, 1873. 

XI : Home 

His faithful men resolved that his body, at what- 
ever cost, must be carried home to his own people, and 



88 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

they prepared for this extraordinary task with the 
greatest care and thoroughness. An exact inventory 
was made by Jacob Wainwright of all his possessions. 
The body was dried and rudely embalmed. The heart 
was buried under a tree upon which his name was 
carved. This sacred spot is now marked by an obelisk 
in the middle of a square clearing in the forest, and 
is held in trust by the United Free Church of Scotland, 
which has a mission station at Chitambo, as near to 
the grave as conditions of health will permit. 

Having prepared the body for the journey the men 
set out for the coast, which they reached after nine 
months of toilsome and perilous marching. When well 
on the way they met an expedition coming up country 
to the relief of Livingstone. These Englishmen ad- 
vised them to go no farther, but to bury the body 
where they were. They also rummaged through Liv- 
ingstone's boxes and appropriated some things to their 
own use. So gross were their perceptions, so blind 
were they to the moral sublimity of what these sons 
of Africa were doing! 

Livingstone's men held on their way and on Febru- 
ary 15, 1874, reached the coast opposite Zanzibar, 
where they delivered his body to the British consul. 
It was brought home to England, and after being iden- 
tified by the old fracture in the arm it was finally laid 
to rest in the nave of Westminster Abbey, on Saturday, 
April 18, 1874. 

The impression made by the death of Livingstone 
upon the mind of the civilised world was profound, and 
it would be impossible to overestimate his influence 
on the development of Africa. He had travelled thirty 






DAVED LIVINGSTONE, EXPLORER 89 

thousand miles through the heart of the Dark Contin- 
ent, and wherever he passed he left a trail of light. He 
sounded the death knell of the slave trade and opened 
the country for legitimate commerce. His death marked 
a new era in Christian missions. But his greatest gift 
to the world was just to have been himself. Born 
in a commercial age he brought back to earth the spirit 
of old romance, and his name will shine for ever with 
the radiance of saint, of knight-errant, and of martyr. 



CHAPTER IV 

JOHN MACKENZIE, MISSIONARY STATESMAN 

I : The Elgin Apprentice 

In the ancient ruins of Elgin Cathedral there is 
pointed out a rude stone trough, possibly a baptismal 
font, where it is said a poor mother was wont to lay 
her baby when she went out to work. That baby be- 
came General Anderson, who founded and endowed 
the Anderson Institute, "for the support of old age and 
the education of youth.'' In 1845 a little lad of nine 
was admitted to the Institution, having walked six- 
teen miles from his native parish of Knockando. His 
name was John Mackenzie, and he was destined to 
become famous as an African missionary and states- 
man. He was the son of a crofter on Speyside, the 
youngest of six children, and was born on August 30, 
1835. The bare soil of the upland croft provided but 
a scanty living for the family, so his parents thankfully 
accepted the opportunity of placing their youngest boy 
in the Anderson Institution. Thus commenced his con- 
nection with Elgin, which became the home of his boy- 
hood and youth. 

On leaving the Institution in his fourteenth year 
Mackenzie was apprenticed to Mr. Russell, the printer 
and publisher of the Elgin C our ant. Here he worked 
on an average ten hours a day with a good deal of 

90 



JOHN MACKENZIE, STATESMAN 91 

overtime. His leisure, such as it was, was entirely at 
his own disposal, for he lived alone in lodgings and 
was his own master. How singularly independent his 
boyhood was, is brought out by an entry in his diary, 
made in his twentieth year. "It is now ten years since 
I have asked parental advice. During that period, when 
not under the eye of a teacher or of an employer, I 
have been entirely my own adviser, and my own mas- 
ter. Instead of giving, both parents ask advice from 
me." The summer evenings were devoted to cricket; 
in the winter the Bishopmill Literary Association stim- 
ulated interests of another sort. 

When about eighteen years of age Mackenzie came 
under the influence of Alexander Williamson, after- 
wards a well known missionary in China, who in the 
summer of 1853 conducted the services in the Inde- 
pendent Chapel at Elgin. From this time he dated 
both his conversion and his desire to be a missionary. 
That desire burned very intensely within him, and 
he prayed earnestly for some door to open that would 
give him release from his long apprenticeship. His 
whole religious life at this period, as revealed in his 
private diary, bears the marks of extreme spiritual 
tension. Thus he writes in 1854, "Sept. pth. The war 
is going on incessantly, only God is gracious and up- 
holds me. I have an increasing desire to work for 
God, and I am only happy at present in the office from 
the prospect of soon leaving it." "Sept. iyth, Sunday. 
At the communion table today I felt more overcome 
than ever before. What a glorious feeling! Dear 
Jesus ! He was not there hidden as He often is to my 
darkened mind. Heaven seemed very near, life very 



92 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

short, and to spend my life as a missionary of the Gos- 
pel appeared a glorious work indeed. Oh, I felt eager 
to engage in it! Surely God, when he thinks proper, 
will open a door for me." "Sept. ipth. Felt some 
strange doubts sweep into my mind this afternoon. 
. . . They strike at the very root. . . . God help this 
darkened, blinded, stumbling, but trusting and confid- 
ing soul ! For Jesus' sake !" No doubt it was out of 
these struggles and prayers that there emerged the 
Mackenzie of later years, strong, calm and patient al- 
most beyond belief. 

During the ensuing winter his health showed some 
alarming symptoms, which led to his release from his 
apprenticeship and his return to his home in Knock- 
ando. Believing that this was likely to be his final 
parting from Elgin, he delivered a farewell address 
to his old companions in the town from the pulpit of 
the Independent Chapel. The intense passion of the 
youthful preacher, unduly excited perhaps by the oc- 
casion and by the sight of the crowded audience of 
young men, made a deep and lasting impression. 

II : The Resolved Man 

In September, 1855, Mackenzie was accepted for 
training by the London Missionary Society. A previ- 
ous application had been declined on the ground of his 
youth and inexperience, but now the way was open for 
the attaining of his heart's desire. He was sent to Bed- 
ford to study for two years under the Rev. J. Jukes, 
the Congregational minister there. Subsequently he 
went for a session to Edinburgh, where he continued 






JOHN MACKENZIE, STATESMAN 93 

his studies in theology and also in medicine. He was 
a hard working student and exceedingly rigorous in the 
demands he made upon himself. Thus he writes in his 
diary, "Oh, if I strained every nerve for Christ ! I must 
do this. I will do it in the strength of the Lord. Have 
obtained much consolation and strength and encour- 
agement from the thought that the Lord will help the 
resolved man. ... I have now a set of resolutions for 
the guidance of my life drawn up, which I read on my 
knees three times a day. ... I have resolved to live to 
Christ and to live for Christ. I must conquer every 
evil habit, that's settled. Idleness, irresolution, care- 
lessness, timidity, irregularity, all must be swept away. 
In the strength of the living God, the Helper of the 
aspirant, I will set to work. . . . We have not enough 
of devoted personal attachment to Him Whom we call 
our Saviour. Oh, let us be extreme on this point, let us 
burn with love, and yearn earnestly to testify in actions 
the existence of this love." 

Under this high pressure his health gave way. In his 
morbid conscientiousness he had been half starving 
himself, so that though now nearly six feet in height, 
he weighed only eight stone. He became oppressed 
with a gloomy foreboding that his life would be an ut- 
ter failure. Out of this Slough of Despond he was 
delivered by the wise counsel of a London doctor, who 
told him the truth about his condition. At once Mack- 
enzie's strong sense asserted itself, and henceforth he 
led a saner and healthier, though none the less ardent, 
Christian life. 

On the 19th of April, 1858, Mackenzie was ordained 
in the Queen Street Hall, Edinburgh, for service in 



94. THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

South Africa. Shortly afterwards he was married to 
Helen Douglas of Portobello, the sister of a college 
friend, whose devoted love sustained him through all 
the long years of labour and warfare that fell to his lot. 
The young couple sailed on June 5 and reached Cape 
Town July 14. A description of Mackenzie's personal 
appearance, though written somewhat later, may not 
inappropriately be given here. "A tall, square-built 
man, about five feet eleven inches in height, fair in 
complexion, genial in countenance, with great strength 
of character stamped on his brow, and an unmistakable 
Highlander, speaking the English language with won- 
derful purity and intonation." 

Ill: Following up Livingstone 

His arrival in Africa occurred at a moment of con- 
siderable interest in the history of African missions. 
Livingstone's great journey had roused the home 
country and he was now going out as British consul to 
take up his work of exploration on the Zambesi. His 
challenge to the Churches had met with a warm re- 
sponse, and the London Missionary Society resolved to 
plant missions among the Matabele and the Makololo. 
Sekeletu, the Makololo chief, who lived with his 
tribe among the swamps of the upper Zambesi, was 
understood to have expressed to Livingstone his 
willingness to move to a healthier region farther east. 
This would no doubt expose him to attack from the 
Matabele across the river, but it was hoped that the 
influence of the two missions would be sufficient to 
keep the peace and reconcile these warlike tribes. It 



JOHN MACKENZIE, STATESMAN 95 

was a bold and well-conceived scheme, the one which 
promised, if successful, to lead to the most important 
results in the Christian development of Central Africa. 
Three young missionaries with their wives sailed in 
the company of the Mackenzies to Cape Town. Of 
these, Messrs. Sykes and Thomas were destined for the 
Matabele, while Mr. Price was to be Mackenzie's col- 
league to the Makololo. Dr. Moffat was to superin- 
tend the planting of the Matabele mission; Mr. Hel- 
more, an African missionary of experience, was put 
in charge of the expedition to the Makololo. The 
mission party travelled north from the Cape, and after 
much difficulty through the death of many of their oxen 
they at length reached Dr. Moffat's station of Kuru- 
man. Here they had their first pleasing impressions 
of what mission work could do for the natives. When 
the Sabbath bell rang out its summons groups of de- 
cently dressed people were to be seen wending their 
way to church, many of them carrying their Sechuana 
Bibles and hymn books. Evidences were not wanting 
of industrial progress, in the better cultivation of the 
land and the use of improved implements. Indeed, 
there were Bechuana farmers who had reached a 
standard of civilisation at least equal to that of the 
Boers across the border in the Transvaal. 

IV : The Makololo Disaster 

Preparations were at once begun for launching the 
Makololo mission. In view of the difficulties likely 
to be encountered in crossing the Kalahari Desert and 
the swamps of the Zambesi, Mackenzie proposed that 



96 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

the missionaries should leave their wives behind at 
Kuruman till they had secured the removal of Sekeletu's 
tribe to a healthier region and established the mission 
station. This plan was decisively rejected by Mr. Hel- 
more whose wife was determined to accompany her 
husband with her four children. In view of the trag- 
edy that followed and the criticism aroused, it is only 
fair to remember that Livingstone had taken his wife 
and children with him on his first visit to the Makololo. 
It was natural, therefore, as Mackenzie says, that other 
missionaries' wives should "venture to hope that they 
could go where Mrs. Livingstone had been, and reside 
where their husbands resided." 

Finally it was arranged that Mr. and Mrs. Price and 
their baby should accompany the Helmores, and that 
the Mackenzies should follow the next year with sup- 
plies. The pioneer party set out and, after a terrible 
struggle, crossed the Kalahari Desert. The sufferings 
of the children must have been dreadful. Livingstone 
has described his feelings under the same conditions 
when he saw his children like to die of thirst before 
his eyes. Mrs. Helmore's letters tell a pitiful story. 
"Tuesday the 6th was one of the most trying days I 
ever passed. We were all faint with thirst, and of 
course eating was out of the question. The poor chil- 
dren continually asked for water. I put them off as 
long as I could, and when they could be denied no 
longer, doled the precious fluid out a spoonful at a time.. 
Poor Selina and Henry cried bitterly. Willie bore up 
manfully but his sunken eyes showed how much he 
suffered. As for dear Lizzie she did not utter a word 
of complaint, nor even asked for water, but lay all 



JOHN MACKENZIE, STATESMAN 97 

the day on the ground perfectly quiet, her lips quite 
parched and blackened.' ' 

Next season, in May, i860, the Mackenzies started 
on their long trek to the north. They passed the 
ruins of Kolobeng, Livingstone's station which had 
been destroyed by the Boers. As Theal, the South 
African historian has suggested that Livingstone's 
house was looted by the natives, it may be mentioned 
that Mackenzie afterwards became acquainted with 
Boers who had articles of Livingstone's furniture in 
their houses, and who did not deny the raid. Still far- 
ther north they came to Shoshong, the town of the 
Bamangwato, which in after years became their home. 
Here they met Dr. Moflat returning from the Matabele 
where the new mission had been successfully estab- 
lished. No news had as yet come through from Hel- 
more and his party. 

Mackenzie now pushed out into "the great thirst 
land," where he was entirely dependent on the guid- 
ance of the Bushmen. Here a rumour reached him of 
disaster having befallen his friends, but he disregarded 
it and continued to advance. The Bushmen, however, 
by a kindly deception led him westward till they brought 
him to the Zouga river near Lake Ngami. Here he 
met a party of natives who said that a white man and 
two children were with their chief, higher up the river. 
Mackenzie had some reason to suspect the truth of this 
story, for the chief in question was an enemy of the 
Makololo, and wished to prevent missionaries reach- 
ing them. He therefore resolved still to go on, but 
he had not proceeded far when he met Mr. Price, who, 
ill and half distracted with his sufferings, had been 



98 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

brought down the river. In broken accents his tragic 
tale was told. His wife and child were dead, also Mr. 
and Mrs. Helmore and two of their children. Sekeletu 
had treated them with great callousness, and was even 
suspected of having poisoned them. When they sick- 
ened and died in rapid succession he claimed all their 
property, and when Mr. Price left with the two sur- 
viving children the guides led them through a belt of 
tsetse fly, so that all the oxen died. Thus it was that 
Mackenzie found them stranded and destitute on the 
Zouga. 

The injustice and cruelty of Sekeletu, so different 
from his magnificent help of Livingstone, may perhaps 
be best accounted for by the fact that he was in reality 
a weakling. On this occasion he fell under the influ- 
ence of a renegade member of the missionary party, 
who counselled him to make away with the white men 
and seize their goods. Afterwards he expressed con- 
trition when he found his conduct reprobated through 
all the tribes, as an unparalleled breach of hospitality 
to men whom he had himself invited to his country. 

Not long after this the story of the Makololo came 
to a dark and bloody end. Their vassals, the Barotsi, 
planned a sudden rising and put them to death in a 
single night, an African St. Bartholomew. A fugitive 
party escaped and reached the Zouga, only to be mas- 
sacred by the tribe that had sheltered Mr. Price. Thus 
perished the Makololo. "I do not venture," says Mac- 
kenzie, "to affirm the presence of divine retribution in 
this tragic end of the Makololo. But in Bechuana- 
land, and especially among the heathen in the north- 
ern part, the feeling is very general that the destruc- 



JOHN MACKENZIE, STATESMAN 99 

tion of the Makololo, so soon after their inhospitable 
and perfidious conduct towards the missionaries, is to 
be traced to the vengeance of God. Nor is this mere 
theory in the native mind, for in some of our difficul- 
ties at Shoshong, when sinister counsels had almost pre- 
vailed, some Gamaliel was sure to stand up and ad- 
vise, 'Let the missionary alone. The Makololo injured 
the missionaries, and where are the Makololo ?' " 

The disaster to the mission party was a deep per- 
sonal grief to the Mackenzies and a heavy blow to 
their hopes. It was a sad company that struggled 
back through the desert. The children behaved like 
heroes. Mackenzie tells how he was touched by a con- 
versation he overheard between them. Little Willie 
remarked to his sister that he was very thirsty. Was 
the water all gone? His sister, who was older than 
he, answered that "he must be a good boy, and not ask 
for water. Did he not remember how they had been 
thirsty long ago, when mamma was still living? They 
must not ask for water." The water happened to be 
plentiful and Mackenzie had the pleasure of giving the 
little fellow a hearty drink. Kuruman was reached in 
February, 1861, after an absence of nine months, and 
the orphan children were sent home to England. 

V : In Khama's Country 

For some time the Directors of the London Mis- 
sionary Society were in doubt as to policy, and in the 
meantime Mackenzie was sent to begin work in Sho- 
shong. Here he would be in position to keep in touch 
with the Zambesi, and if a favourable opportunity 



100 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

arose, to make a fresh attempt to establish the Makololo 
mission. The massacre of that tribe, however, put an 
end to these hopes, and Mackenzie settled down to per- 
manent work in Shoshong. The town numbered about 
30,000 inhabitants. It lay under a ridge of rocky hills 
which provided a refuge in time of war. Sekhome, the 
chief, was an unscrupulous schemer, but his son Khama 
was a young man of great promise, who afterwards be- 
came known as a high-principled Christian ruler, one 
of the noblest that Africa has produced. The influence 
which Mackenzie had in forming his character and 
shaping his policy was one of his finest services to 
B.echuanaland. 

In 1862 the dreaded Matabele made an attack on 
Shoshong. The women and children took refuge in 
the mountain, and with them went Mrs. Mackenzie and 
her children, for it was known that the Matabele, when 
on the warpath, spared neither sex nor age. Sekhome, 
as high priest of the tribe, began his incantations, but 
Khama cut him short, and leading out some of the 
younger regiments repelled the enemy. During the 
crisis Mackenzie had preached on the Christian atti- 
tude to war and the duty of defending one's home. 
This, with the courage of Khama, gave the heathen 
chiefs and people a new view of things. "We were 
told," they said, "that when a man became a Christian 
he was bound not to fight in any cause. We therefore 
expected that all the 'men of the word of God' would 
have ascended the mountain with the women and chil- 
dren. But to-day those who pray to God are our 
leaders." 

Next year Mackenzie was sent to reinforce the Ma- 



JOHN MACKENZIE, STATESMAN 101 

tabele mission in the absence of some of his colleagues. 
At first Mosilikatse refused him permission to^nter 
Matabeleland because he was Sekhome's missiorra^p 
but this objection was overcome, and in the end the 
chief offered him a site for a mission station if he 
would reside permanently in the country. During this 
visit Mackenzie gained an intimate knowledge of the 
savage military system of the Matabele, a system which 
broke up home life and made progress impossible. 
Hordes of young warriors, herded together in barracks, 
and living only for bloodshed and plunder, were a 
source of disquiet and terror to the tribes far and near. 
Missionaries were admitted to the country but the peo- 
ple were forbiden to learn. More and more it was be- 
coming apparent that this military empire must change 
or one day be shattered. 

Returning to Shoshong in 1864 Mackenzie settled 
down feeling that here was to be the scene of his 
life work, and such it proved to be for the next 
twelve years. The Gospel had first been preached in 
Shoshong by Livingstone when travelling to Lake 
Ngami. A native teacher had continued the work, and 
for some time a Lutheran missionary had laboured in 
the town. When Mackenzie arrived there was the 
nucleus of a Christian church, enrolled, as he thought, 
prematurely. It was his -task to instruct those who 
were already favourable to the Gospel and to evangelise 
the mass of the people who were still heathen. In 
order to reach them he preached at various public 
places through the town. When the little band of ill- 
taught converts painfully attempted to sing a hymn the 
heathens were vastly amused. "What are they doing ?" 



102 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

was asked. "They are raising the death cry," sug- 

«<rest^some wag, and the phrase stuck. In conducting 
khoor Mackenzie found much encouragement in the 
progress of his pupils. "I came to the conclusion/' he 
says, "that the mental ability of those I was teaching 
was probably as great as in a village school in a country 
district in England." The missionary's home life was 
something new and wonderful to the native mind. 
"After being shown, at their own request, some of the 
rooms of our house, a party of the wives of petty chiefs 
at length broke out, addressing Mrs. Mackenzie, 'Happy 
wife and happy mother! You have a kingdom here 
of your own' !" 

Sekhome, the chief, showed for a time some interest 
in the new doctrine. "I found," writes Mackenzie, 
"that this man with the sinister face, who was the 
greatest sorcerer in Bechuanaland, who was hated by 
many and mistrusted by all his neighbours, had a keen 
appreciation of the character and the object of the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ. Tt is all very good for you 
white men to follow the Word of God,' he would say. 
'God made you with straight hearts like this,' — hold- 
ing out his finger straight — 'but it is a different thing 
for us black people. God made us with a crooked 
heart like this/ — holding out his bent finger. When 
assured that both black and white needed and could 
receive a new and right heart, 'Not black people,' he 
said, 'and yet, after all, Khama's heart is perhaps 
right. Yes, Khama's heart is right.' " When pressed 
to follow his son's example he seemed to regard it as 
impossible. "When I think of entering the Word of 



JOHN MACKENZIE, STATESMAN 103 

God," he said, "it is like going out into the plain and 
meeting all the forces of the Matabele single-lmnde^' 

When Sekhome rejected the Gospel it was but^a 
short step for him to become a persecutor. He ordered 
his son to marry another wife and conform to heathen 
customs. When Khama refused he ordered him to be 
put to death, but found that he was too popular to 
be thus dealt with. There followed a period of plot- 
ting and of civil war, during which Khama behaved 
with extraordinary restraint and Christian consistency. 
Several times his father was completely in his power, 
but, like David with King Saul, he refused to avenge 
himself. In the end Sekhome found himself a fugi- 
tive from his tribe, and his brother Macheng, who had 
long been a prisoner among the Matabele, was restored 
to the chieftainship. 

These events greatly disturbed the work of the mis- 
sion, but Mackenzie held fearlessly on his way. It 
is typical of his straightforward courage and of the 
influence he had won, that when Khama and his fol- 
lowers were driven to the mountain, he went to Sek- 
home and obtained permission to visit them and conduct 
services every Sunday. On the other hand, when 
Sekhome himself had to flee, after the failure of a 
plot to assassinate his brother and son, it was in Mac- 
kenzie's house that he sought refuge ere he escaped 
under cover of darkness. Macheng, the new chief, 
though himself a heathen, declared, "Since I arrived 
at Shoshong I have seen and heard for myself. The 
people of the Word of God alone speak the truth." 

In 1867 gold was discovered on the Tati River, in 
the district lying between Shoshong and the Matabele 



104 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

country, and immediately greedy eyes were turned 
thither 4 The Boers tried to stir up a native war, and 
owicially expressed the pious hope of seeing "the vaga- 
bonds at Shoshong set on fire." Mackenzie was thus 
brought face to face with a problem he had long 
brooded upon, and which was to become paramount 
in his life, — the problem of the development of South 
Africa and the safeguarding of the native races. On 
this occasion the chief Mach^xig, acting on Mackenzie's 
advice, petitioned the British Government to take him 
and his people under their protection before the rush 
of gold diggers and land grabbers should begin. 

In the same year a church was built at Shoshong, 
and Mackenzie has given a vivid and amusing picture 
of the scene on the opening day. "Early on Tuesday 
the people began to assemble. Each division of the 
town came headed by its chief. Heathen men with 
hoary heads, toothless and tottering with old age, came 
leaning on their staffs. Full grown men — the haughty, 
the cunning, the fierce — came, with those younger in 
years, of brighter eye and more hopeful mien. We 
had the usual members of the congregation, some of 
whom were neatly dressed. But sticklers for the pro- 
prieties would have been shocked to see a man moving 
in the crowd who considered himself well dressed 
though wearing a shirt only, another with trousers 
only, a third with a black 'swallow-tail,' closely but- 
toned to the chin — the only piece of European clothing 
which the man wore — another with a soldier's red coat, 
overshadowed by an immense wide-awake hat. . . . 
The church doors were thrown open and many strange 
remarks were made with reference to the building. 



JOHN MACKENZIE, STATESMAN 105 

One man said, 'What a splendid place to drink beer 
in !' another, 'What a capital pen for sheep and goats !' 
and a third declared that with a few people inside they 
could defy the Matabele nation." For the feast an 
ox was killed and prepared, with a plentiful supply of 
sour milk and tea. Near the end of the feast it was 
found that a certain head man had been overlooked. 
The meat was all gone, and the milk, but the chief 
was equal to the occasion. Handing the man a large 
kettle of tea he said tactfully, "Drink, for there is no 
longer aught to eat. The tea was prepared at the 
same fire as the meat, it is therefore quite the same 
thing. Drink, for tea is your part of the feast." The 
man quietly sat down with his kettle of tea and drank 
it all. 

The year 1870 was spent at home on furlough, when, 
besides doing the usual deputation work, Mackenzie 
wrote his book, Ten Years North of the Orange River, 
in which he gives a remarkably clear and interesting 
account of tribal life and mission work in South 
Africa. Returning to Shoshong in 1871 he continued 
his work there for five years. The church prospered 
and Khama continued to grow in wisdom and Chris- 
tian character. On becoming chief he substituted a 
Christian service for the heathen ceremonies that were 
customary in connection with the sowing of the seed. 
He also made a law that white traders were not to 
bring strong drink into his country. The number of 
traders and hunters who came to Shoshong was increas- 
ing year by year, and it was Mackenzie's habit to hold 
a service for them in his house every Sunday after- 
noon. Captain Parker Gilmore, in his book, The 



106 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

Great Thirst Land, describes one such service. "Sun- 
day came round, and I could have known the day from 
all others by the air of rest that lay over Shoshong. . . . 
In the little parlour, where worship was held, the pres- 
ence of the Almighty might almost be felt. In my early 
life I had regarded religion lightly, but when I looked 
upon half a dozen stalwart men accustomed to every- 
day hardship and danger, our worthy pastor's children 
and a few servants, giving their whole soul to what 
they were engaged in, I more forcibly felt than ever 
I did before that there was a great God above us, One 
who invited our adoration and love. . . . That was 
the most solemn Sunday I ever passed." 

VI : When Black Meets White 

In 1876 Mackenzie was moved to Kuruman to take 
charge of the Moffat Institution which was being built 
there. This Institution, for the training of native 
pastors and teachers, was a memorial to Dr. Moffat, 
and, owing to the great liberality of subscribers, the 
Directors of the London Missionary Society proceeded 
to plan the work on a larger scale than was considered 
prudent by the missionaries on the spot. Mackenzie, 
therefore, besides his work of teaching and preaching, 
was saddled with the task of erecting buildings worth 
£10,000. This he did in such a manner as to call forth 
the warmest praise of the Government inspector of 
works. 

From this point Mackenzie began to find himself 
drawn irresistibly into the wide and turbid stream of 
South African and Imperial politics. This arose out 



JOHN MACKENZIE, STATESMAN 107 

of work which came to him in the way of duty, work 
to be done for the defence of those African tribes to 
whom he had consecrated his life. Many of the natives 
had made considerable progress in agriculture, but now 
cases occurred in which white men stepped in and 
seized their farms. Even when appeal was made to 
the nearest court in the Colony, the intruders sat tight 
and defied the law. These occurrences gave rise to a 
miserable state of turmoil and unrest, which at last 
broke out in open rebellion. The white settlers in the 
neighbourhood of Kuruman took refuge in the Insti- 
tution. Mackenzie refused to ask Government protec- 
tion for the mission, as he did not consider it to be the 
duty of the Government to safeguard missionaries 
working among heathen tribes, but he left others free 
to act as they judged best. How little he feared the 
rebels may be gathered from the fact that he walked 
alone to their camp to secure the safety of some men 
who were coming from Kimberley. He long after- 
wards remembered vividly that on this adventure he 
saw, what he had recognised on one or two occasions 
at Shoshong, the passionate lust for blood looking at 
him greedily from the eyes of native men. It was 
indeed a bolder venture than the much vaunted deed of 
Cecil Rhodes who visited the Matabele camp only after 
they were broken and cowed and desirous of peace. 
Not without reason did Mackenzie enjoy among the 
natives the surname of Tau, the lion. 

During the quelling of the rebellion he had much 
correspondence with the authorities, in which he urged 
upon them the moral obligation resting on Britain 
to maintain law and order in Bechuanaland, and to 



108 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

secure to the progressive native farmers the peaceful 
possession of their farms. This he knew to be the 
unanimous desire of the chiefs and of the tribesmen, 
Britain, however, withdrew and, while claiming nomi- 
nal sovereignty, failed to provide real government. The 
deplorable result was that bands of Boer raiders crossed 
the border and seized two districts, which they named 
Stellaland and Goshen. 

VII: The Battle for Bechuanaland 

In 1882 Mackenzie left for his second furlough, 
resolved to fight with his whole strength the battle 
for Bechuanaland. The forces arrayed against him 
were extremely formidable, — the powerful influence 
of land-grabbers who cared nothing for native rights 
and who found their profit in fishing in troubled waters, 
the territorial ambition of the Boers who were deter- 
mined to annex Bechuanaland and close the road to 
the north, above all the ignorance and indifference of 
Britain. Many at home were frankly callous as to 
the fate of the natives, believing that they were doomed 
to extinction like the American Indians. A prominent 
member of the Government said they would "go as 
the Choctaws had done." "It went to my heart like a 
knell,'' was Mackenzie's comment. Others were con- 
scientiously opposed to any advance which would 
increase the already vast responsibilities of the Empire. 
The nation generally was in total ignorance of the real 
situation. Mackenzie had to convince the people of 
England that the question was not whether the native 
tribes should be left alone, — already the tide of immi- 



JOHN MACKENZIE, STATESMAN 109 

gration was pouring over them and could not be stayed, 
— but whether a firm Government was to be interposed 
between them and the rapacity of unjust and cruel men. 
"The real question was," he wrote, "were they to go 
north with the stain of human blood on their hands, or 
were they to go north as Christians, clean-handed ?" 
He commenced a vigorous campaign, and by speeches, 
articles, letters and personal interviews he gradually 
impressed his ideas upon the public mind. 

In 1883 a deputation from the Transvaal headed 
by Kruger, came to London to press for various con- 
cessions, including the annexation of all Bechuanaland. 
The paramount chief of the Bechuanas set out for 
England to defend his country, but finding himself 
unable to get beyond Cape Town, he appointed Mac- 
kenzie to represent him. "I belong to the Queen," he 
wrote. "Plead for me ! Help me ! If the Government 
does not help me I am destroyed." Mackenzie needed 
no spur. With great skill and determination he fought 
the pretensions of the Boers, and defeated their projec- 
tion of annexation. In the end Britain assumed the 
protectorate of Bechuanaland, and Mackenzie was ap- 
pointed the first Deputy-Commissioner. This office 
he undertook with the cordial approval of the London 
Missionary Society. 

It would be impossible within our limits to follow 
Mackenzie through all the tangled maze of political 
intrigue into which he was now plunged. Arriving 
at the Cape in 1884 he travelled north to Bechuana- 
land without any military force, and succeeded in 
conciliating all but an extreme minority of the Stella- 
landers. But his policy of justice to the natives roused 



110 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

the fierce hostility of all the land-grabbing and gold- 
mining interests, to whom the native was but a pawn 
in the white man's game. The whole Boer influence 
was against him. He now also crossed the path of the 
great but unscrupulous Cecil Rhodes, whose dreams 
were more befitting a Roman Emperor than a Chris- 
tian statesman. Mackenzie was therefore assailed 
and maligned with extreme bitterness. Part of the 
secret of this enmity was revealed with cynical frank- 
ness in a letter which afterwards came to light, in which 
he was referred to as "a political suicide, that is to 
say, an honest man who is. not to be bought." 

Weary of it all Mackenzie sighs, "If one had only 
fair play," a wish as reasonable as it was futile. Rhodes 
by a disgraceful intrigue secured Mackenzie's recall 
and his own appointment as Commissioner. This, 
however, did not improve matters, and in 1885 Sir 
Charles Warren was sent out at the head of a strong 
expedition to settle Bechuanaland. Entering on his 
task he began to unravel a discreditable tangle. He 
found that important despatches had been suppressed, 
and in particular a petition in favour of Mackenzie 
signed by the majority of the Stellalanders. This 
petition Cecil Rhodes had in his pocket while he con- 
tinued to assure the Government thiit Mackenzie's 
policy had excited universal hostility. Thereupon Sir 
Charles Warren, having expressed his mind freely to 
Rhodes, made Mackenzie his right hand man during 
his stay in Bechuanaland. At the close of the expedi- 
tion he referred to his work in the highest terms. "I 
cannot too strongly express how much I am indebted 
to him for the assistance he has rendered to Her Maj- 



JOHN MACKENZIE, STATESMAN 111 

esty's Government. . . . The confidence reposed in him 
by not only the native tribes but also by the Dutch 
and English population has been most marked, and 
I consider the complete success of the expedition is 
due in a marked degree to his cordial co-operation and 
aid. ... I am convinced that if Mr. Mackenzie had 
had fair play he would have settled these territories at 
the time he came up without a stronger force than two 
hundred police." 

When the Warren expedition was withdrawn it was 
soon apparent that Bechuanaland was in danger of re- 
lapsing to the old conditions of disorder. To prevent, 
if possible, this frustration of hope, Mackenzie returned 
to England and resumed his work of educating public 
opinion. To aid in this he wrote his book, Austral 
Africa, in which he set forth with much impressiveness 
his conception of Britain's mission as a Christian and 
civilizing power in South Africa. "I know of nothing," 
he wrote, "which illustrates the present South African 
position so well as the condition of the United States 
of America before the civil war. The great question 
then was, Shall the new territories become Free Soil 
or Slave States?" Believing then that a great moral 
issue was at stake, he fought on. But powerful influ- 
ences of another sort were at work. Through the 
genius and force of Cecil Rhodes the British South 
Africa Company was founded with almost unlimited 
means at its disposal, and it received from the Gov- 
ernment a charter for the development of the vast 
territories now known as Rhodesia. This, though 
securing these regions for British influence, was far 
from fulfilling Mackenzie's ideal, and he lived to 



112 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

condemn with no uncertain voice the Company's treat- 
ment of the natives. It illustrates his magnanimity 
that, on reading that the British South Africa pioneers 
proposed to travel by a route which would inevitably 
bring them into conflict with the Matabele, he wrote 
a warning to the Company, giving a sketch and full 
details of a safer route, which was accordingly adopted. 
Though his highest hopes had been disappointed he 
had at least secured the Protectorate of Bechuanaland, 
and a proposal was at one time favourably considered 
of reappointing him Commissioner. When this fell 
through he felt himself free to return to his work as 
a missionary. 

VIII : "Among God's Little Ones, Content" 

During the years of conflict his connection with the 
London Missionary Society had been closely main- 
tained, for it was recognised that he was fighting 
the battle of the mission as well as of the native. 
When he was retired from his commissionership 
the Directors cabled to him to resume his salary as 
a married missionary. This act gave him as much 
pure pleasure as any event of his public life. "Now, 
what do you think," he wrote, "of the dear old 
L.M.S. ? I mean to say it is nobly done. I count 
it one of the honours of my life to reconnect myself 
in this way. I shall accept the honour but I trust I 
shall not need to draw the money. I feel quite lifted 
up with great thankfulness that the Directors are such 
broad-minded, thoughtful, Christian gentlemen." 

It was not considered expedient that Mackenzie 



JOHN MACKENZIE, STATESMAN 113 

should return to the Bechuanas. Accordingly he was 
appointed to take charge of the mission station of 
Hankey, a settlement about fifty miles from Port 
Elizabeth. Here he spent the last seven years of his 
life. It was a great change for one who had been for 
years a leading figure in the national life, to be set to 
work in this quiet corner, but it was work that brought 
restfulness and peace of heart. The situation at Hankey 
was peculiar, and such as called for those qualities of 
firmness and patience, good sense and statesmanship 
which had been exercised in a wider field. The mis- 
sion station had an estate of over 4000 acres attached 
to it. The original intention had been to settle native 
converts upon it, but this policy, proving unsuitable, 
was abandoned and permission obtained from the 
Colonial Government to sell the land to the native 
tenants. This had not been carried out, rents were in 
arrears, irrigation had been neglected, and things gen- 
erally were in a mess. Mackenzie's task, in addition 
to the ordinary work of a missionary, was "to put 
Hankey right from top to bottom." With character- 
istic energy he set himself to learn High Dutch, in 
which language he had now to preach. Before leaving 
England he had bought the necessary books and, aided 
by his previous knowledge of the South African Taal, 
he was able on the first Sunday after his arrival at 
Hankey to conduct the whole service and preach the 
sermon in Dutch. 

Intent on his work he shut himself up in the little 
valley of Hankey, even refusing for many weeks to 
read the newspapers or take any part in public life 
until he had mastered the problem before him. It was 



114 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

a complex one, including questions of land tenure, 
irrigation, roadmaking, etc., besides school and church 
work. Gradually order began to appear out of chaos. 
One who watched his work wrote of him, "He can 
wait, and if you cannot do that here, you are not good 
for much. The things he has had to stand, the bicker- 
ings, trials, small intrigues, and insults, are incredible. 
They would have sent any other man mad in a month. 
. . . And what has come of it all? Why, the place is 
changed." It was the same spirit of Christian patience 
as he had displayed in negotiating with the Stella- 
landers, when a Government official burst from the 
room saying, "He must be more than human to stand 
what he does." 

As a preacher he was at his best on communion Sun- 
days. Then his manner became peculiarly tender and 
his voice thrilled with emotion. As time passed he 
had the joy of seeing of the fruit of his labours in a 
considerable increase of the native church, and in a 
quickening of religious life among the white settlers. 
In his own character his friends noted a singular ripen- 
ing and mellowing. His only brother and his four 
sisters all died in rapid succession in Scotland, leaving 
him the sole survivor of his family. Writing about 
this time to one who had been bereaved he says, "Do 
not lose heart in your loneliness — grasp the pilgrim 
staff more firmly. Each of us must work out his day 
resolutely and with his very best efforts." "Resolutely" 
— he is still of the mind that "the Lord will help the 
resolved man." 

In his last years he took little part in public life, 
beyond contributing articles to the leading English 



JOHN MACKENZIE, STATESMAN 115 

reviews when asked to do so. Events occurred which 
caused him deep and anxious sorrow, such as the Jame- 
son raid, the war in South Bechuanaland, and some of 
the doings of the Chartered Company in Rhodesia. 
Yet his mind was singularly free from bitterness. On 
reading in a newspaper a reference to "Mackenzie and 
Rhodes" as great enemies, he was much distressed 
and, turning to his wife, said with deep feeling that 
there was no one beyond his own family for whom he 
prayed more constantly than Cecil Rhodes. In 1895 
his old friend Khama with two other Bechuana chiefs 
came to England to protest against the Chartered Com- 
pany's attempt to annex their country. No African 
perhaps ever made a more favourable impression on 
the British public than did Khama. His progress 
through England and Scotland was a triumph and his 
mission a complete success. This was naturally a 
great delight to Mackenzie, and probably it is as 
Khama' s missionary that he will longest be remembered 
by many. 

The arduous labours of his life now began to tell 
upon him increasingly. Several years before, in the 
midst of his public anxieties, he had a sudden seizure 
when conducting a service at Berwick-on-Tweed. In 
October, 1898, another stroke fell upon him, and though 
he made a partial recovery and was able to go on a 
visit to his son in Kimberley, he again had an attack 
and died on March 23rd, 1899, in his 64th year. 

Mackenzie's career is a powerful reminder of the 
vast forces, political, industrial and social, against 
which the Christian missionary in Africa has to strug- 
gle, forces that embitter race feeling and hinder the 



116 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

advance of the Gospel. He was a far seeing man, a 
great Christian statesman and a true imperialist. To 
him belongs the honour of having been the man who 
first forced Britain to face her God-given task of con- 
trolling the destinies of the entire region from the 
Cape to the Zambesi. His policy did not find imme- 
diate acceptance, for a prophet has often as little 
honour in his own generation as in his own country, 
but it is the same ideal which has led to the policy of 
Mandates, now taking shape under the auspices of the 
League of Nations. The native problem in South 
Africa is by no means solved, but still causes the gravest 
anxiety to responsible statesmen. Only the future can 
reveal whether the ignorant tyranny of the Boers, the 
flagrant injustice of the land-grabbers and the selfish 
imperialism of Cecil Rhodes may not have laid up, 
deep in the mind of the African, a store of resentment 
which may yet have to be 'dearly paid for. Certain it 
is that if such a dire result is to be averted it will only 
be by the patient and steady application of those prin- 
ciples of Christian justice and brotherhood which 
Mackenzie so powerfully advocated, to heal the wounds 
already made. 



CHAPTER V 

STEWART OF LOVEDALE 

When David Livingstone, after crossing the African 
continent, appealed to the Christians of Britain to 
enter by the door which he had opened, there was a 
young student in Scotland who felt this as a personal 
call, and resolved to give his life to the redemption 
of Central Africa. In the providence of God he found 
his work in South, rather than Central, Africa, but his 
pioneering on the Zambesi, and the impulse he gave 
to the founding of the Livingstonia Mission, were 
an invaluable contribution to the fulfilment of Living- 
stone's dearest hope. James Stewart, therefore, must 
be named as the first, and one of the worthiest, of all 
who have followed in the footsteps of the great explorer. 

I: A Son of the Disruption 

He was born on February 14, 1831, in the city of 
Edinburgh, where his father was a cab proprietor. In 
1842 the family removed to the farm of Pictonshill, 
near Scone in Perthshire, and this was their home till 
1847 when they returned to Edinburgh. These five 
years cover the period of the Disruption, when reli- 
gious feeling and controversy in Scotland were at 
fever heat. The farmer of Bictonshill was the main- 
stay of the Free Church in Scone. Meetings were held 

117 



118 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

in his barn, where the country people sat breathless 
under the fervent preaching of Andrew Bonar and 
the saintly John Milne of Perth. When the Free 
Church of Scone was built, "PictonshiH" carted the 
stones free of charge, and in this labour of love his 
son James, then a schoolboy at Perth Academy, lent 
a willing hand in his holidays. It is pleasing to relate 
that the same autumn the villagers of Scone, to show 
their gratitude, insisted on reaping the fields of Pictons- 
hill without hire. 

In this time of religious quickening the ardent spirit 
of James Stewart took fire. One day as he followed 
the plough, his mind busy with the dreams of youth, 
the patient horses halted in the furrow, and there, 
leaning on the stilts, he brooded on his future till, sud- 
denly straightening himself up, he said, "God helping 
me, I will be a missionary." Writing long after of 
his boyhood, he said, "Though from my earliest years 
I meant to go abroad, I cannot say that missionary work 
attracted me at first. The boy's ideal, firmly fixed and 
constantly recurring, was to lead an expedition in 
some unexplored region. That was probably nothing 
more than the mere restlessness of race-instinct in a 
boy half Norse on his mother's side, if also half Celt 
on the other." Nature and grace now combined to 
make him a knight errant of the Kingdom of God. 

In 1847 his father, owing to money losses, gave 
up his farm and returned to business in Edinburgh. 
In this financial strait young Stewart gave his help 
for several years, and he was twenty before the way 
opened for him to go to the university. His curricu- 
lum, however, was extraordinarily complete and varied. 



STEWART OF LOVEDALE 119 

It embraced three full courses of four years each in 
Arts, Divinity and Medicine. His Arts and Divinity 
courses were taken at Edinburgh (1850-59), except 
two sessions at St. Andrews (1852-54). His medical 
studies were begun at Edinburgh (1859-61), and, after 
being interrupted by his adventurous trip to the Zam- 
besi, were completed at Glasgow (1864-66). During 
the whole time he supported himself, at first by private 
tutoring, afterwards by preaching and secretarial work. 
His character and bearing seem to have left a vivid 
impression on the minds of his fellow students. Tall 
and thin, — his height was six feet two inches — full of 
wiry strength, with a long, eager stride that carried 
him forward as if he swooped on things, gifted with 
a fine mobile face and expressive eyes, and bearing 
himself with soldierly dignity, he made a distinguished 
figure in any company. 

His home circle was early broken by death. He 
lost his mother when quite young and his father mar- 
ried again. After his father's death he lived for sev- 
eral years with his step-mother, who loved him like 
an only son. Their mutual affection was very rare and 
beautiful. She died, however, when he was a divinity 
student and he was left alone in the world. ''What an 
affection she lavished upon me," he writes, "now I 
can never repay her. . . . Despite all my infirmity of 
temper, sometimes, alas too often, overcoming me, I 
loved my mother and she knew it." 

II : With Livingstone on the Zambesi 

Stewart's thoughts were definitely turned to Africa 
by Livingstone's visit to England in 1857 and the pub- 



120 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

lication of his travels. He was then a divinity student. 
At the close of his course he intimated to the Foreign 
Mission Committee of the Free Church that he and 
two fellow students were willing to go as pioneer mis- 
sionaries to the regions of Central Africa which Liv- 
ingstone had opened up. This offer the committee, 
though interested in the proposal, felt compelled to 
decline. Most students would have considered such 
a refusal decisive, but Stewart was not built that way. 
He was tenacious and resolute, even to a fault, and 
difficulties, for him, existed only to be overcome. He 
had commenced his medical studies with a view to fit- 
ting himself more fully for service in Africa. Now 
he set to work and formed an influential committee, 
called the New Central Africa Committee. He raised 
subscriptions, threw his whole private means into the 
fund, and was commissioned by the committee to pro- 
ceed to the Zambesi on a mission of inquiry. 

He set sail in July, 1861, in the company of Mrs. 
Livingstone. Dr. Livingstone was at that time British 
consul on the Zambesi, and had just aided in planting 
the Universities' Mission in the Shire Highlands to 
the south of Lake Nyasa. Reinforcements were going 
out to strengthen that mission, including Bishop Mac- 
kenzie's sister and Mrs. Burrup, and a brig had been 
hired to convey the party from Durban to the Zambesi 
mouth. Both at Cape Town and at Durban Stewart 
was amazed to find himself the object of bitter attacks 
on the part of some who seemed determined that he 
should never reach the Zambesi. In certain quarters 
he was represented as a trader in the guise of a mis- 
sionary. The Church of England authorities regarded 



STEWART OF LOVEDALE 121 

him as a poacher on their preserves. Having com- 
menced mission work the previous year at a single 
station, which they were to abandon the following year, 
they appeared to consider the whole of Central Africa 
as their diocese, and were ready to cry, "Hands off," 
to all other Christians. It was a pitiful exhibition of 
that exclusive spirit which the Church of England 
alone of Protestant Churches cherishes, and which is 
peculiarly detestable in the mission field. At Durban 
Stewart despaired of being permitted to go farther, 
but Mrs. Livingstone came to the rescue by declaring 
firmly that she would not go without him. So perforce 
he had to be allowed on board, and arrived off the 
mouth of the Zambesi where he was warmly welcomed 
by Livingstone on February i, 1862. 

For four months he was Livingstone's guest at 
Shupanga and received from him every encouragement 
in his project of planting a Scottish mission in Central 
Africa. In April Mrs. Livingstone died. Stewart 
was present on that sad occasion and at Livingstone's 
request commended her soul to God. Next day he 
helped to lay her body in the grave. In these circum- 
stances the two men were drawn very closely together 
and spent the evenings in long, intimate talks. But 
the call of their work soon separated them. While Liv- 
ingstone proceeded to the exploration of the Rovuma, 
Stewart got a canoe with eight rowers and pushed up 
the Shire. Then, leaving the canoe below the Murchison 
cataracts, he travelled on foot through the Shire High- 
lands, where Blantyre now stands. While recognising 
the natural fertility and healthiness of the country, he 
reports it "a lonely lanjj of barbarism, of game and 



122 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

wild beasts, of timid and harried but not unkindly men, 
harassed by never ending slave raids and inter-tribal 
wars." It was a bitter disappointment that his resources 
did not permit him to reach Lake Nyasa, though he 
was within fifty miles of its southern end. Returning 
to the Zambesi he proceeded up that river past Tete 
as far as the Kebrabasa rapids. He did a great deal 
of hard tramping in examining the country on both 
sides of the river. Livingstone speaks of "the most 
praiseworthy energy with which he did all this in 
spite of occasional attacks of fever." Stewart him- 
self wrote, "Considering the way we lived, the wonder 
is we were ever free from fever. We carried no tents 
but slept in the open when dry, and in the canoe when 
it rained. Except tea and coffee, we carried no civilised 
provisions, but depended mainly on what could be got 
in the country." So severely had the fever told upon 
him that, when he returned to the coast, Captain Wilson, 
from whom he had parted fifteen months before, failed 
completely to recognise him, and described him after- 
wards as being "more like a bag of bones than a man." 
He returned to Scotland after an absence of nearly 
two and a half years, bringing with him a considerable 
amount of fresh and accurate information regarding 
the state of Central Africa and the prospects of Chris- 
tian work there. He reported that the most hopeful 
line of advance appeared to be northward by the Shire 
to Lake Nyasa, not westward along the Zambesi. At 
the same time his view was that the disturbed state 
of the country made the planting of a mission for 
the moment impossible. The collapse of the Univer- 
sities' Mission may have helped to this conclusion. 



STEWART OF LOVEDALE 123 

Livingstone thought it too hasty and continued to 
hope that Stewart would rejoin him on the Zambesi. 
It was not, however, until after Livingstone's death 
that Stewart's work bore fruit in the Livingstonia and 
Blantyre Missions. 

Ill : The Builder of Lovedale 

Meantime Stewart resumed and completed his medi- 
cal studies at Glasgow. Thereafter he was appointed 
to Lovedale in South Africa. In November, 1866, 
he married Mina, youngest daughter of Alex. Stephen, 
shipbuilder, Glasgow, and together they reached Love- 
dale on January 2, 1867. In accepting this appoint- 
ment Dr. Stewart had stipulated that whenever a new 
mission should be planted in Central Africa he should 
be free to join it. Seven long years were to elapse 
before that time came, seven years in which he 
struck his roots deep, and filled his hands with work 
that he could not forsake. So, although Dr. Stewart, 
as will presently appear, aided in founding and organ- 
ising Livingstonia, it was at Lovedale that he found 
his life work, and reared an enduring monument to his 
name. 

Lovedale lies about 80 miles inland from East Lon- 
don, in the northeast corner of Cape Colony, which 
is the ancient home of the Kafir race. In 1824 a mis- 
sion was planted here by the Glasgow Missionary 
Society, and named Lovedale after Dr. Love, the first 
secretary of the Society. The site was a bare, open 
valley, through which the little river Tyumie flows, but 
it has been greatly beautified by planting and cultiva- 



124 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

tion. As the Kafrarian mission developed a training 
school was established here in 1841, under the charge 
of the Rev. W. Govan. Thus when Dr. Stewart arrived 
Mr. Govan had been at work for over a quarter of a 
century with considerable success. The Institution 
had produced at least one student of distinction in Tiyo 
Soga, the preacher and writer, one of Africa's most 
eminent sons. In the late fifties, with the aid of Gov- 
ernment grants, provision was made for industrial 
training as well as general education, and natives were 
apprenticed as carpenters and wagon-builders, masons 
and blacksmiths. Printing was added in 1861. 

Lovedale was visited in 1864 by Dr. Duff, the famous 
Indian educationalist, who reported in favour of a 
considerable extension and reorganisation of the work. 
The Institution was based on the principle of equality, 
no distinction being made between the boys from the 
various tribes and different missions. A small minority 
of white pupils sat on the same benches as the Africans. 
Mr. Govan's idea was to provide at Lovedale, for such 
as were able to receive it, both natives and whites, an 
English High School education, including Latin and 
Greek. Dr. Duff had the fear that this policy tended 
to draw the school aside from its proper work of 
training native pastors and teachers. The matter was 
the subject of some controversy at the time, which 
eventually led to the resignation of Mr. Govan, shortly 
after Dr. Stewart arrived at Lovedale. The young mis- 
sionary had therefore a free field in which to work for 
the development of the Institution. 

No fitter man could have been found for the task. 
He was not without experience of Africa, and he had 



STEWART OF LOVEDALE 125 

brooded on her needs and problems for years. He 
was a man who knew his own mind, bold in concep- 
tion, swift and decisive in action, a tireless worker 
and a born administrator. The impression he made 
upon the natives was expressed in the name by which 
he became known among their tribes, Somgxada, the 
Swift Strider. If he had a fault it lay in the direction 
of being impetuous and, as some would have said, 
overbearing. But, if quick, he was also very tender. 
No matter what work he had on hand, the moment he 
heard of distress or sickness or death he was there 
to comfort and to help. 

Here is a picture of him, printed indelibly on the 
heart of a little child. "My father was District Sur- 
geon for some years at Alice, about a mile and a half 
from Lovedale. To me then, although a child, Dr. 
Stewart seemed a second St. John 'whom Jesus loved.' 
One evening about forty years ago, there was a hurried 
knocking at our hall door, and upon opening we found 

a recent acquaintance, whose husband, Major G , 

was absent for a short time, standing with her little 
boy in her arms. 

" 'Oh!' she cried, 'R has been bitten by a snake.' 

"He was a dear little fellow about four years of 
age. He had been bitten in several places, as Mrs. 

G in her fright had fallen with him, and forehead, 

leg and hands all bore marks of the snake's malice. 
My father was away. What was to be done? We 
sent for Dr. Stewart. He came and stayed all night. 

I can see them now — Mrs. G on her knees by the 

bedside, and dear Dr. Stewart. He sucked every one 
of those wounds. . . . For the passing stranger whose 



126 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

mother-heart was crying so sorely, 'Let this cup pass,' 
for the wee unknown laddie, whose little life as com- 
pared to his was as naught, he took in the poison and 
saved the child." 

The companion picture is as beautiful, and gives 
the happy sequel. Thirty years have passed away and 
Dr. Stewart is known and honoured in all the Churches. 
One day he is found in his study, playing with his 
little grandchild, so pleased and laughing because the 
little fellow is "making his fingers like Granddaddy, 
and Granddaddy is a bad boy too," and he won't have 
him taken away because "they are both enjoying them- 
selves," he says. And the golden link that binds the 
stories is that the father of the little grandchild was 
the boy whose poisoned wounds Dr. Stewart had 
sucked. 

The coming of Dr. Stewart brought new life to 
Lovedale, and under him the development of the Insti- 
tution was so great as completely to dwarf all that had 
gone before. He discarded as useless the attempt to 
teach Latin and Greek. Some of the natives, ambitious 
for a display of learning, grumbled at this, but he 
maintained that English was their classic, and a suffi- 
cient mental discipline. A much more startling inno- 
vation was the introduction of fees. No one had yet 
dared to imagine that natives would be induced to pay 
for education. After a two days' palaver on the ques- 
tion Dr. Stewart carried his point. A man, Nyoka, 
whose name the doctor ever after remembered with 
gratitude, rose and said, "I will give £4 for my son." 
Others followed. Contrary to all expectation, so suc- 
cessful was the new policy that in the four years from 



STEWART OF LOVEDALE 127 

1870 to 1874 the number of pupils rose from 92 to 480, 
and the fees from nothing to £1300. 

Dr. Stewart laid the greatest stress upon the dignity 
of manual labour. He strove to rouse the native from 
his ancestral indolence, and at the same time to guard 
against the conceit that education sometimes brings. 
His aim was to make him in every way a more capable 
and energetic man. Accordingly every afternoon at 
three o'clock the boys were paraded in work parties, 
and Dr. Stewart would often go out at their head 
armed with his spade. On one occasion a party of 
visitors who had come to see Lovedale when its fame 
had spread through all the Colony, found a gang of 
Kafir boys busily digging. They addressed the fore- 
man of the gang who stood, spade in hand. "Is Dr. 
Stewart at home?" "Yes," was the reply. "Can 
you tell us where to find him?" "He is here. I am 
Dr. Stewart." Lovedale is perhaps the only College 
in the world where a gold medal is given for the best 
spadework. 

Among these manifold activities the religious and 
missionary aim was ever kept supreme. Dr. Stewart 
felt a personal responsibility for seeing that no boy 
should drift through Lovedale without having the 
claims of Christ definitely brought before him. The 
senior students were encouraged to go out on Sunday 
morning and preach in the neighbouring kraals, and 
on Saturday evening Dr. Stewart was accustomed to 
meet with them and study the subjects of their ad- 
dresses. Twice a year a week of special services was 
held at the Institution, in order to bring to decision 
those who had been under Christian teaching in the 



128 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

classes. Some of these occasions were memorable, no- 
tably in 1874 when Lovedale was visited by a wave of 
revival, doubtless due in some measure to sympathetic 
contact with the revival then in progress at home. 
One result of this movement was that when volunteers 
were asked for Livingstonia fourteen students offered 
themselves. On hearing this a doubter exclaimed, 
"Now I believe in the Lovedale revival. Before, I 
didn't." 

IV: The Spirit of the Fingoes 

Towards the close of his first period of service in 
Lovedale Dr. Stewart was suddenly faced with a great 
additional task. To the north of Lovedale, in the 
land beyond the Great Kei River, is the home of the 
Fingoes. They were the broken remnant of certain 
Zulu tribes who, for their loyalty to Britain, had been 
granted a settlement there. They had previously been 
degraded and enslaved by other tribes, but now, under 
the wise guidance of a British resident, Captain Blyth, 
they had begun to realise their manhood. Looking wist- 
fully at Lovedale they at length in 1873 appealed to Dr. 
Stewart to plant among them a similar Institution, "a 
child of Lovedale," as they called it. Dr. Stewart had 
planned costly extensions at Lovedale and was on the 
eve of going home to raise the necessary money, so 
that this fresh appeal was embarrassing and might well 
have seemed impossible. Dr. Stewart started for 
Fingoland, but after a day's journey he turned aside 
into the house of a friend and wrote a letter to Captain 
Blyth proposing that if the Fingoes would themselves 



STEWART OF LOVEDALE 129 

raise £1000, he would find another £1000. No such 
proposal had ever before been made to a native tribe, 
and Dr. Stewart was more than half inclined to think 
it would quench the ardour of the Fingoes. Three 
months later he received a telegram from Captain 
Blyth, "Come up, the money is ready" He lost no 
time in complying with this request, and his meeting 
with the Fingoes was as picturesque as it was historic. 
Thirty years later he described it thus : "The meeting 
to hand over that subscription was held at Ngqamakwe 
on the veldt, there being no building large enough for 
the crowd of men ar\d women and missionaries. On 
a small deal table which stood on the grass was a large 
heap of silver, over £1450, and the substance of the 
native speaking that day was given in a sentence by 
one of themselves. He pointed to the money and said, 
'There are the stones, now build.' Kafirs are all good 
speakers, figurative, concrete, pointed. There was 
further speaking, and the people were assured that their 
contribution would be covered by one of equal amount, 
to be raised in Scotland or elsewhere, and all went 
home satisfied that the institution was safe, as the sum 
of £3000 had been practically guaranteed.' ' 

During the progress of the building certain addi- 
tions were considered necessary, and again the Fingoes 
rose to the occasion. Another meeting was held, more 
speeches were made, and a second £1500 in silver was 
subscribed. When the Institution was opened in 1877 
there still remained a debt of £1600. On Sir Bartle 
Frere mentioning this to one of the headmen, he replied, 
"The thing is settled. We are going to pay all the 
debt." And they did. A final meeting was held at 



130 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

which, with considerable flourish of trumpets and abun- 
dant speechifying after the native fashion, amid a scene 
of great enthusiasm, shillings 'and half crowns were 
forthcoming in sufficient quantity to pay the debt. The 
institution was called Blythswood, in honour of Captain 
Blyth, and it has proved itself not only "a child of 
Lovedale," but the mother of civilisation in Fingoland. 
In 1890 it was declared by a competent observer that 
"the Fingoes of Transkei are half a century ahead of 
their countrymen in wealth, intelligence, and material 
progress, agricultural skill, sobriety, and civilised habits 
of life." 

V : The Birth of Livingstonia 

Dr. Stewart returned to Scotland early in 1874, 
having on hand the double task of raising £10,000 for 
Lovedale and £1500, according to his pledge, for 
Blythswood. At the moment he had no more thought 
of a mission in Central Africa, as he said afterwards, 
"than of proposing a mission to the North Pole." But 
the body of David Livingstone was brought home, and 
made its mute appeal to the Christians of Britain and 
of the world. On the 18th of April, 1874, Dr. Stewart 
took part in the funeral in Westminster Abbey, and 
the following month, at the General Assembly of the 
Free Church, he proposed, as Scotland's memorial of 
Livingstone, the founding of a mission in Central 
Africa. The closing sentence of his speech deserves 
to be quoted, as nobly describing the ideal of the mis- 
sion, and giving public utterance for the first time to 
the historic name of Livingstonia. "I would humbly 



STEWART OF LOVEDALE 131 

suggest, as the truest memorial of Livingstone, the 
establishment by this Church, or several Churches 
together, of an institution at once industrial and edu- 
cational, to teach the truths of the Gospel and the arts 
of civilised life to the natives of the country, and that 
it be placed in a carefully selected and commanding 
spot in Central Africa, where from its position and 
capabilities it might grow into a town, and afterwards 
into a city, and become a great centre of commerce, 
civilisation, and Christianity. And this I would call 
Livingstonia." 

The proposal was adopted with enthusiasm, but 
upon Dr. Stewart's willing shoulders fell the burden 
of raising the necessary £10,000. He set to work and 
speedily raised £20,000. So swiftly did things move 
that, exactly twelve months after the Assembly speech, 
the pioneer party under Mr. E. D. Young and Dr. Laws 
left for the Zambesi, carrying with them the little 
steamer Bala for use on Lake Nyasa. No wonder Dr. 
Stewart, writing to his wife, says, "Livingstonia is 
the heaviest piece of business I have undertaken in my 
life. The responsibility is very great from the amount 
of money, life, and credit that is at stake." 

He was not able to lead the pioneer party himself 
as he had to fulfil his obligations to Lovedale and 
Blythswood, but the summer of 1887 saw him back at 
Lovedale and ready to start for Central Africa with 
reinforcements for Livingstonia. In his party were 
four students of Lovedale, one of whom, William 
Koyi, is well entitled to be called the Apostle of Ngoni- 
land. They reached Quilimane in August, sailed up 
the Zambesi and Shire in canoes, and, having accom- 



132 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

plished the portages of the Murchison Cataracts, met 
the Ilala in the upper river and steamed into the lake. 
Dr. Stewart remained for fifteen months at Lake Nyasa 
till the new mission was fairly on its feet. Then he 
returned to Lovedale in the beginning of 1878. Thus 
he had given altogether five of the best years of his 
life to Central Africa. 



VI : The Triumph of Lovedale 

From this time onward Dr. Stewart devoted his 
strength to Lovedale, and under his powerful leader- 
ship the Institution was raised to the proud position 
which it occupies to-day as the glory of South African 
missions, and the rock that splinters the shafts of 
the missionary critic. All who would know what can 
be made of 'the native must visit it, and the visitor will 
carry away the most pleasant and inspiring memories. 
From the railway station of Alice one has a charming 
view of a well- wooded valley, with many roofs of scat- 
tered buildings rising over the trees. Then follows a 
mile of a drive between hedgerows of quince, and along 
a stately avenue. The spreading oaks and lofty pines, 
the flower and shrub plots, the trim turf and well kept 
gravel paths are a refreshing sight in a land of dreary 
veldt. At the head of the avenue stands the main build- 
ing of the Institution, which contains a central hall 
with classrooms, library, and bookstore. To the right 
are the boys' dormitory and the dining hall, the work- 
shops and technical buildings, and, in the distance, the 
Victoria Hospital. To the left, along a shady avenue, 
are the buildings of the girls' school. Scattered through 



STEWART OF LOVEDALE 133 

the grounds are the teachers' houses, and, in the bottom 
of the valley, the Tyumie murmurs along between deep 
banks. 

At Lovedale are gathered in hundreds the brightest of 
the native youth of South Africa. They belong to 
every tribe from the Cape to the Zambesi. Fingoes, 
Gaikas, Basutos, Zulus, Barolongs, Bechuanas, Meta- 
bele, are all mingled in friendly rivalry of work and 
sport. The six o'clock morning bell rings out 'over 
the valley, and soon the whole community is astir. A 
busy hum resounds through the classrooms and work- 
shops till three o'clock in the afternoon, when there is 
a general parade for outdoor work which lasts till five. 
On Saturday the centre of interest is the "Oval," where 
many a keen game is contested. Sunday brings its 
own activities. By 6 130 in the morning little mission 
bands are on their way to preach in the neighbour- 
ing kraals. In the evening, when the sacred labours 
of the day are over, all assemble for worship in the 
central hall. To organise, superintend, and finance 
this great Institution was a Herculean task. The 
Christian Express of Lovedale thus described Dr. Stew- 
art's activities : "He deemed fourteen, sixteen, or even 
eighteen hours of incessant toil a common daily task. 
He taught in the Institution, he edited this paper, he 
had medical charge of the Mission. In addition to 
week-day service he preached two sermons every 
Sabbath, he saw to every detail of the work, he guided 
every distinct department, he examined the classes, he 
superintended the field companies, he was here, there, 
and everywhere, tireless, commanding, inspiring. At 
a period when medical aid was difficult to obtain in 



134 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

the district, many were the calls made on his time and 
strength. Yet he gave both ungrudgingly, and no 
home was too far, no road too difficult, no night too 
stormy, to hinder the great missionary in his errands 
of mercy/ ' 

It seemed to some that he burdened himself unduly 
with details, and in his eagerness held the reins too 
much in his own hands. That is a common fault of 
great rulers, but Dr. Stewart was far from conforming 
to the type of the soulless autocrat. All Lovedale knew 
that he had a very tender heart. "My dear fellow/ ' 
he exclaimed as he stood by the death-bed of one of 
his colleagues, "forgive me if ever I have seemed harsh, 
or have hurt you in any way." "I know nothing," was 
the reply, "but your great goodness to me and mine 
these many years." 

He watched over his pupils with fatherly care. He 
had learned from Livingstone to respect the manhood 
of the natives, and he resented the contemptuous treat- 
ment they too often received from the colonists. "I 
am a father," he used to say, "and I wish to treat these 
children entrusted to me as I should like my own chil- 
dren to be treated if they were under the care of 
strangers." 

His own home life was exceedingly happy, and none 
was readier than he to make merry with his children and 
his friends. It was said of him that "he could laugh 
tears." Some of his letters to his children remind one, 
in their tenderness, of Luther's letters to his little Hans. 
Thus he writes to his little girl, "I will tell you now 
what I am doing. I go about the streets and into the 
offices, and I say to this man, 'Give me a hundred 



STEWART OF LOVEDALE 135 

pounds for Lovedale,' and to another who is not so 
rich I say, 'Give me fifty pounds.' And they give it 
because they love Christ and have already given Him 
their hearts. Now I am going to ask you to give 
Jesus something too. Go into the garden and see if 
there are any flowers. Then go into another garden 
and you will find a flower. Take it and say, 'Lord 
Jesus, I give you this. It is a little flower, it is my 
heart. I give it to you because you love me. You love 
me so much that long ago you died for me. And now 
I give the little flower of my life, and I pray to you, 

In the Kingdom of Thy grace 
Give a little child a place/ 

And he will give you that place, and you will be a 
glad and happy little girl, and we shall be so happy 
when we hear that you have given this little flower to 
Christ." 

The hospitality of the Stewarts was unbounded. A 
constant succession of visitors to Lovedale, — mission- 
aries, educationalists, statesmen, — found an unfailing 
welcome. No less courteous a welcome was given to 
the native who came to the kitchen door, bringing 
some grievance or pitiful story. The old people of 
the Lovedale location were his special charge. Every 
Sunday there was a dinner-party of old men at the 
house, and if any were too feeble to come for it, the 
meal was sent to them. His friends used to say that 
"great as he was in action, he was greater still in 
sympathy." 

One of his staff tells the following story: "An old 



136 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

native man was living under the trees at Lovedale. 
He was a leper, cast out by his family, and almost 
starving. Dr. Stewart had a little hut built for him, 
and sent him food daily from his own house. The 
hut was was carried away by a flood. Dr. Stewart 
took a truck, put the old man on it, and with the aid 
of a boy carried him to an outhouse near his own, where 
he lived for several years. He was a heathen, but 
either Dr. Stewart or a native student read and prayed 
with him almost daily. Light dawned on his soul. I 
used to hear him pray every night." 

Lovedale was so conspicuous a success that it 
naturally became a target for the critic of missions. 
Solemn warnings were given against the employment 
of Lovedale boys, who were .declared to be raw Kafirs 
spoiled by education. The industrial side of the work 
especially was the object of bitter attack by those who 
wished to reserve all skilled labour to the white man. 
Dr. Stewart was therefore compelled to become the 
defender of his own system and the champion of native 
education. His defence was characteristically thorough 
and effective. In 1887 he published Lovedale Past and 
Present, in which he gave the record of over 2000 
natives who had passed through the Institution. Of 
these 36 had become preachers, 409 teachers, 6 lawyers, 
3 journalists, 26 telegraphists, while the rest were 
employed in various trades or in farming. Only three 
per cent had been brought before the magistrate for 
breaking the law. "Can Oxford do better than that?" 
Dr. Stewart was wont to say. In the year 1900 the 
record was brought up to date and again published. 
It then contained 6640 names, of whom preachers and 



STEWART OF LOVEDALE 137 

teachers numbered 880, farmers 385, tradesmen 352, 
Government clerks 112, in railway and police work 86, 
while about 1000 were employed at the mines. It was 
a triumphant vindication of Lovedale. Dr. Stewart 
could truly say, "But for the education received here 
and the previous labours of the missionaries who sent 
them to Lovedale, they would have been unable to 
distinguish the top of a printed page from the bottom, 
unable to use a single tool, unable even to use that com- 
plicated instrument called a spade, as anyone may 
satisfy himself if he sends a raw native to dig in his 
garden. They have been dragged out of the abyss of 
ignorance and entire want of manual skill by the oppor- 
tunities they have had in this and similar places." 

Happily Dr. Stewart lived to see in 1905 the publica- 
tion of an authoritative pronouncement in favour of 
native education by the African Native Affairs Com- 
mission. After an exhaustive inquiry they unanimously 
declared, "that the natives must be educated and civil- 
ised, that the only people who have tried to elevate 
them are the missionaries and some Christian families, 
and that the hope of their elevation must depend mainly 
on their acceptance of the Christian faith and morals." 

VII : The Founding of Kikuyu 

In 1 89 1 Dr. Stewart was called to another big 
pioneering adventure, this time in British East Africa. 
Sir William Mackinnon and other friends, having sub- 
scribed money for an East African mission, asked Dr. 
Stewart to organise and establish it. He was at home 
on furlough, and now sixty-one years of age, but he 



138 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

responded to the call with the ardour of youth. Pro- 
ceeding to Mombasa he organised a caravan and led 
it 200 miles up country, toiling through the Taro Desert 
till they reached the higher ground north of Kilima 
Njaro, where the mission was successfully established. 
It is now familiarly known as the Kikuyu mission of 
the Church of Scotland. Dr. Stewart's exertions on 
this occasion appear extraordinary for a man of his 
age. "It is safe to say," a colleague at the Institution 
wrote, "that during the thirteen days he spent at Love- 
dale when about to pioneer the East African Mission, 
he did not sleep thirty hours. When the dawn was 
breaking you could still see a light in his room." On 
the march he had to urge the parched and weary car- 
riers forward, yet he was the only one in the party 
'untouched by sickness and unmarked by fatigue/ " 

VIII : 'Without Were Fightings" 

The last decade of Dr. Stewart's life was crowded 
with labours and troubles to an unusual degree. To- 
wards the close of the century the Ethiopian movement 
wrought wide-spread havoc in the mission churches of 
South Africa. It had for its aim the establishing of 
a native church wholly independent of white control, 
but the movement was vitiated by race feeling and 
empty vanity. It did not touch Lovedale till 1898, 
when Mzimba, the pastor of the native church, an old 
pupil and friend of Dr. Stewart, seceded without warn- 
ing, taking with him two-thirds of his congregation 
and £1300 of church money. How little cause Mzimba 
had to complain of his old teacher may be gathered 
from the fact that once when travelling together, on 



STEWART OF LOVEDALE 139 

coming to an inn, Dr. Stewart insisted that, unless 
accommodation were found for Mzimba, he himself 
would sleep in the barn and let his native friend occupy 
his bedroom. The treachery of Mzimba, for it was 
no less, cut Dr. Stewart to the heart. All attempts at 
conciliation having failed, the Presbytery had to appeal 
to the law courts, and Mzimba was ordered to restore 
the money he had appropriated. The lawyer who con- 
ducted the case wrote afterwards, "Dr. Stewart was 
never the same man again. That bitter time left a 
scar upon his heart that I believe he felt each day 
until he died." 

Another event which brought a dark cloud was 
the outbreak of the Boer War. Dr. Stewart had all 
his life kept himself free from party politics, but on 
this occasion he felt compelled to enter the arena. He 
believed, as did all missionaries in South Africa, that 
Kruger's Government was the enemy of native rights. 
He had sufficient evidence of his own to confirm the 
weighty verdict of Moffat and Livingstone and Mac- 
kenzie. He felt, therefore, that he ought not to be 
silent, especially as some Boer ministers had addressed 
a partisan appeal to the Churches of Britain. Accord- 
ingly he threw himself into the conflict in his own 
swift -and impulsive way. It was the welfare of the 
natives that he had chiefly in view, but that seemed 
to many a negligible element in the historic struggle 
between Boer and Briton. It was a time of great 
political bitterness, and Dr. Stewart was deeply grieved 
to find that his action not only lost him the friendship 
of many of the Dutch for whom he cherished a warm 
regard, but also alienated some of his friends at home. 



140 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

In 1899, the year preceding the Church Union in 
Scotland, Dr. Stewart was called to be Moderator of 
the Free Church, the first African missionary who had 
occupied that honourable position. In 1902 he was 
back in Scotland delivering the Duff lectures on mis- 
sions, which were published the following year under 
the title of Dawn in the Dark Continent. After a visit 
to America he returned to Lovedale in 1904 and told 
the students, who met him with royal welcome, that he 
had come home to stay. Signs had appeared of heart 
weakness through overstrain, and he knew that the 
end of the journey could not be far off. 

Nineteen hundred and five was the last year of his 
life, and it brought a fresh trouble of an alarming kind. 
The decision of the Scottish Church case having gone 
in favour of the Wee Frees, Mzimba, with the most 
complete effrontery, represented himself as an oppo- 
nent of the Union, and put in a claim for Lovedale! 
Nobody knew better than the Wee Frees that Mzimba's 
case had nothing to do with the Union, they had them- 
selves voted against him in the Free Church General 
Assembly, but now they warmly took his side and 
supported his claim. It would be difficult to find a 
more disgraceful compact. Extensions were in prog- 
ress at Lovedale, but everything was brought to a 
stand, and Dr. Stewart was faced with the prospect 
of seeing the noble fruit of his life work snatched from 
his hand and given to those who could not possibly 
make use of it. Fortunately the Court dismissed 
Mzimba's claim with the contempt it deserved. But 
the burden and anxiety of these last months hastened 
the end. 



STEWART OF LOVEDALE 141 

IX: "God is Not Dead" 

He died on December 21, 1905, in his 75th year, — 
"our grand old man of Lovedale and of the Empire," 
as the Cape Times described him. He was buried on 
Christmas Day on the summit of Sandili's Kop, a 
prominent hill overlooking the Institution. The feel- 
ings of the natives were touchingly expressed in an 
address to Mrs. Stewart, "The friend of the natives is 
gone. To-day we are orphans. To-day we have no 
present help. The wings which were stretched over 
us are folded, the hands which were stretched out in 
aid of the native are resting. The eye which watched all 
danger is sleeping to-day, the voice which was raised in 
our behalf is still, and we are left sorrowful, amazed, 
troubled. But in our sorrow we say, 'God is not dead.' " 

His thoughts were given to Africa to the last. "I 
wish," he said to his native secretary as he bade him 
farewell, "I wish I could have done more for your 
people and for Africa." But he had done much. With- 
in a week of his death a Native Convention met at 
Lovedale to consider the question of establishing a 
Native College for South Africa. Dr. Stewart's last 
days were spent in making preparations for the Con- 
vention, which he regarded as in some measure the 
crowning of his lifework. The Convention opened 
with a memorial service at his grave, and thereafter 
it was resolved to urge the Colonial Governments to 
establish a central native university at Lovedale, to 
the support of which the natives pledged themselves 
to raise £50,000. Well might it be said of Dr. Stewart 
that he was "felix opportunitate mortis, favoured in the 
moment and manner of his death." 



CHAPTER VI 

LAWS OF LIVINGSTONIA 

I: Henry Drummond's Hero 

One midsummer evening in 1892 Prof. Henry 
Drummond presided over a meeting of Edinburgh stu- 
dents in the Oddfellows' Hall. In introducing the 
speaker he declared that "no man in Europe was better 
worth listening to." He was the first man to place a 
steamer on a Central African lake, "and I have often 
wondered what his feelings were as his vessel ploughed 
the virgin waters of the Lake." With moving elo- 
quence Drummond spoke of the glory of the work, 
carried on for nearly twenty years "in a beastly climate." 
The speaker rose, a rugged, burly form, in striking 
contast to the elegant figure and delicate complexion 
of the Professor. Plainly he did not recognise the 
pen-portrait of himself that had been drawn. One 
had no time to think of the glory of the work, he said, 
it was just a case of pegging away in one's shirt 
sleeves from day to day. As for the climate, well — 
(with a dry smile breaking over his face, and pointing 
at Drummond with his thumb) "Look at him and look 
at me, and judge for yourselves." 

Then he began to talk, not with eloquence or fluency, 
but the plain, downright talk of a strong man. On 

142 



LAWS OF LIVINGSTONIA 143 

and on it flowed, till the daylight faded and faces 
were lost in the gloom. Then he abruptly stopped 
and apologised almost abjectly for having kept the 
meeting so long. It was Laws of Livingstonia, who 
since then has added another thirty years to his record 
of service, and has seen and done more wonderful 
things than, perhaps, any other living man. 

II : Dedicated from Birth 

Robert Laws was born in Aberdeen on May 28, 
1851. He was an only child, and, his mother having 
died when he was but two years old, he was brought 
up by a somewhat stern step-mother, who neverthe- 
less cherished a warm affection for the boy. His father 
was a cabinet-maker, a devout man whose early ambi- 
tion of being a missionary had been frustrated, and 
who now dedicated his son from birth to the foreign 
field. Between father and son there was, in this as 
in other things, the most perfect sympathy. The boy's 
imagination was fired by reading Livingstone's Travels, 
and the secret prayer of his heart was, "O God, send 
me to the Makololo." Years afterwards he remembered 
that prayer when he met some of Livingstone's Mako- 
lolo in the Shire Highlands and received their help in 
carrying the Ilala past the Murchison Cataracts. 

Owing to the straitened circumstances of the family 
his way -did not immediately open up, and he was 
apprenticed as a cabinetmaker. Even after he went 
to college he continued to work at his trade. His old 
shopmates he never forgot, and he used to visit some 
of them whenever he returned to Aberdeen. And they 



144 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

appreciated the man and his work. One of them as 
he lay dying said to his wife, "Send all my tools out 
to Dr. Laws." 

The story of his early struggles bears a remarkable 
resemblance to that of David Livingstone, his hero and 
predecessor, in the same long hours of manual labour, 
followed by evening classes and night study. By the 
aid of a small bursary he was at length able to enter 
the University. The curriculum he planned was char- 
acteristically arduous and thorough. It was, by dove- 
tailing the classes, to take a complete course in Arts, 
Medicine, and Divinity in seven years. By sheer hard 
work and tireless plodding he carried it through. 

During the winter of 1871, when worn down by his 
studies, he contracted smallpox and lay for weeks in 
a hospital at death's door. This illness had a curious 
sequel, for two years after, on applying for work 
under the Glasgow City Mission, he was appointed 
missionary to the Smallpox Hospital, a post which no 
one else could be found to undertake. Here he passed 
through a strenuous period of service, for an epidemic 
was raging in the city and the hospital was over- 
crowded. The Directors speak of his "praise- worthy 
devotion," but he had to live a sort of hermit life, 
shunned by most as a leper. One day at the end of 
May, 1874, he read in the Glasgow Herald a report of 
Dr. Stewart's proposal to the Free Church Assembly to 
found a mission in Central Africa as a memorial to 
David Livingstone. Instantly the conviction flashed 
through his mind, "This is the work I have been prepar- 
ing for all my life." Some months later he met Dr. 
Stewart who, on his part, said, "This is my man if I 



LAWS OF LIVINGSTONIA 145 

can get him." Laws felt himself honour-bound to his 
own, the United Presbyterian, Church. The difficulty, 
however, was speedily overcome by that Church lending 
him to the new mission, while one of its Edinburgh 
congregations agreed to pay his salary for five years 
at least. It was a noble loan, never recalled, and a 
happy augury of the time when the two Churches would 
be joined in one. 

The winter of 1874 was a busy time, for Laws had 
to pass his finals in Medicine and Divinity, besides 
helping in the preparations for the new mission. In 
April, 1875, he took his degree in Medicine and was 
ordained to the ministry, and on May 21st he sailed for 
Africa. 

Ill : Up the Zambesi to Lake Nyasa 

The original mission party went out under the guid- 
ance of Mr. E. D. Young of the Royal Navy, who had 
aided Livingstone in his exploration of the Zambesi. 
Besides Laws and Young, the party consisted of an 
engineer, a seaman, an agriculturist, a carpenter, and 
a blacksmith. Accompanying them was Mr. Hender- 
son of the Church of Scotland who was sent out to 
prospect for a suitable site for a sister mission. Dr. 
Laws has long survived all his fellow pioneers. On 
the roll of honour of the Livingstonia mission his 
name stands first and is followed by no fewer than 
thirty-three names of fellow- workers, all of whom have 
passed from the service of the Mission. Thirty-fifth 
on the list appears the illustrious name of Dr. Elmslie, 
the oldest of his present colleagues. 



146 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

On July 23, 1875, the mission party landed at the 
Kongone mouth of the Zambesi. Their little steamer, 
the Ilala, which they had brought out in parts, was 
speedily bolted together and launched. The up-river 
voyage proved an affair of great toil and difficulty. 
Sandbanks and sudd made progress slow, while croco- 
diles and hippos added more than a spice of danger. 
The junction of the Shire and the Zambesi was hidden 
in a maze of sluggish backwaters, but at length it was 
discovered and the Ilala steamed northward for the 
Lake. Now, however, a new obstacle intervened in 
the shape of sixty miles of cataract, where the river 
plunges down through the glens of the Shire Highlands. 
Fortunately in this district some of Livingstone's 
Makololo had established themselves in authority, and 
with their friendly help a thousand carriers were 
assembled, the boat was carried piecemeal over the 
hills, rebuilt and launched on the upper Shire. On 
October 12 at daybreak the Ilala sailed into the 
Lake, the first steamer to appear on any of the great 
inland seas of Africa. The glorious morning sun, 
just risen above the rim of the eastern hills, and flood- 
ing the surface of the Lake with its golden rays, seemed 
an emblem of the dawn of the Sun of Righteousness 
over these dark regions. As the prow of the little 
steamer cut into the virgin waters the .engine was 
stopped and the company of pioneers, standing together 
on the after deck, sang the Hundredth Psalm. The 
same evening a landing was made on the white sandy 
beach at Cape Maclear, a promontory at the south 
end of the Lake. 



LAWS OF LIVINGSTONIA 147 

IV: The Beacon at Cape Maclear 

Lake Nyasa, as Dr. Laws discovered, is 360 miles 
long and 40 miles broad on an average. It is, in fact, 
a gigantic trench running north and south among the 
hills, and its surface is 1500 feet above sea level. The 
water is deep blue, the surrounding hills rise steeply 
from the shore, and near the south end especially there 
are exquisitely beautiful bays and inlets. The country 
lying to the west of the Lake may be divided into four 
parallel strips which also run north and south. First 
there is the Lake shore; second, the mountainous 
region of Ngoniland; third, the broad valley of the. 
Luangwa, a tributary of the Zambesi, and fourth, the 
great plateau which forms the watershed of Central 
Africa, beyond which, to the west, lie Lake Bang- 
weolo and the head waters of the Congo. The two 
mountain ranges bend round and unite at the north 
end of the Luangwa valley, thus forming a great 
horseshoe of hill country. This was the region now 
destined to become famous in missionary history as 
Livingstonia. 

Darkest Africa was in those days no poetic name, but 
a most gruesome reality. Besides the usual horrors 
of African heathenism, the witch doctor, the poison 
ordeal, and the burial of the living with the dead, 
Nyasaland suffered from the two scourges of tribal 
war and slave raiding. The Angoni, a fierce tribe of 
Zulu origin, after many wanderings had settled on 
the plateau above the Lake, and were continually at 
war with the neighbouring tribes. Arab slave raiders 
from Zanzibar systematically scoured the country, and 



148 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

either by purchase or by violence secured multitudes 
of slaves, whom they sent down to the coast. There 
were regular slave ferries on the Lake, at Deep Bay, 
Kota Kota and other convenient points, where it was 
estimated that 40,000 slaves were shipped across. This 
nefarious traffic, more even than the Angoni raids, 
impoverished and devastated the land. These were 
the evils which had wrung from Livingstone's lips, a 
few years before, the bitter cry, ' 'Blood, blood, every- 
where blood.' ' 

Into the midst of this hell upon earth Dr. Laws and 
his colleagues came, and began the seemingly hopeless 
task of changing it into a garden of God. Temporary 
buildings were erected and a beginning made in acquir- 
ing the language and teaching the natives by simple 
pictures. It was painfully slow work. The natives 
at first could not even see a picture. "This is a cow," 
said the Doctor, pointing to the page. The announce- 
ment was received with shouts of derisive laughter. 
"But it is a cow. See its head, its legs, its tail." At 
last a precocious youth had the eyes of his under- 
standing opened, and suddenly leaping body high, he 
exclaimed, "It is a cow. I see it." Such was the dawn 
of education in Nyasaland. 

The Mission party had received orders, out of 
regard for the spiritual nature of their work, not to 
embroil themselves with the marauding tribes or the 
slave raiders, but while this policy was strictly adhered 
to, the Union Jack at the masthead of the Ilala had for 
a time a restraining influence on the Arabs, and the 
settlement at Cape Maclear became a city of refuge 
for the oppressed. By and by enemies grew bolder, 



LAWS OF LIVINGSTONIA 149 

threats and alarms of war were constant, and natives 
who were working at the Mission station were kid- 
napped. 

For over a year the party -at the Lake were without 
news of the outside world. Henderson had gone south 
to look for a suitable station in the Shire Highlands,, 
and lay the foundations of the Blantyre Mission of 
the Church of Scotland. At length, in October, 1876, 
news arrived of the approach of reinforcements both 
for Blantyre and Livingstonia. At the head of the 
Livingstonia party was Dr. Stewart, accompanied by 
Dr. Black, a young medical missionary who was des- 
tined in a few weeks to fill the first grave at Cape 
Maclear. With them came three artisan missionaries 
and four native teachers from Lovedale, the most 
notable of whom was William Koyi. For the next 
eighteen months Dr. Stewart took charge of the mis- 
sion and by his energy and experience aided greatly 
in its establishment. 

As if their hands were not full enough at Cape 
Maclear, an urgent appeal for help came from Hen- 
derson in December. Blantyre seemed on the verge 
of collapse. The Livingstonia men responded to the 
appeal and, taking service in turns, became the real 
founders of the Church of Scotland Mission. It was 
while voyaging on the lower river, bringing up Blantyre 
goods from the coast, that Dr. Laws had his first 
serious illness and was brought to the point of death. 
Lying in his canoe, drenched with rain and sweat, sick 
and vomiting, suffering from dysentery and tortured 
by mosquitoes, he passed "the most miserable night 
of his life/' Days of delirium followed, but he pulled 



150 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

through and struggled back to the Lake which already 
he felt to be like home. 

Dr. Laws had circumnavigated the Lake soon after 
his first arrival, but Dr. Stewart and he now made a 
more thorough exploration of its coasts. They agreed 
that when the time was ripe for a forward movement 
from Cape Maclear it should be up the Lake to a 
point somewhere about the middle of its western side. 

Dr. Stewart left for Lovedale in December, 1877, 
and henceforth Dr. Laws was in full charge of the 
Mission. The responsibility was no light one. Already 
three graves had been dug beneath the cliff at Cape 
Maclear. The Mission was an isolated outpost in 
the heart of heathenism, cut off from all civilised gov- 
ernment and entirely thrown upon its own resources. 
Not the least difficult of the problems that faced the 
missionaries was how to maintain discipline among 
the natives at the station and protect themselves against 
malefactors. At Blantyre the missionaries took the 
administration of the law into their own hands with 
the most disastrous results. Dr. Laws, with more 
patience and prudence, appealed to the authority of 
neighbouring chiefs, or formed a court of headmen. 

Anxious to extend his knowledge of the country, he 
went on a three months' journey up through the hills 
on the west side of the Lake, and made the acquaint- 
ance of the southern section of the Angoni. In this 
expedition he was greatly aided by William Koyi, who 
found that the Angoni still retained enough of their 
ancestral Zulu speech to understand him. This was 
a piece of great good fortune for William Koyi was 



LAWS OF LIVINGSTONIA 151 

welcomed as a fellow-tribesman, and, settling soon 
after in Ngoniland, he was honoured of God to break 
ground there for the Gospel. Next dry season Dr. 
Laws made a journey to North Ngoniland, going up 
the Lake to Bandawe and striking inland to the hills. 
Here he met Mombera, the paramount chief of the 
Angoni, and held friendly conference with that savage 
potentate. Mombera was not unfavourable to having 
a white man in his country, but he demanded that Dr. 
Laws should have no dealing with his enemies at the 
Lake shore. This of course could not be agreed to, 
and for long it continued to be a grievance with the 
Angoni. 

In 1879 Dr. Laws journeyed down to the coast and 
sailed for East London with the pleasant expectation 
of meeting his bride. While waiting, he paid a visit 
to Lovedale to study the methods of native education 
there, and when he left the Colony he took with him 
about £30 in small change in the hope of inducing the 
natives of Nyasaland to use English money. Learning 
that his bride had come out by the east coast he hurried 
back to the Zambesi, only to find that she had already 
started up the river. He followed, with such speed 
as may be imagined, and overtook the lady at Blantyre 
where they were happily married. Mrs. Laws was 
the first white lady to live at Lake Nyasa, and for 
forty-two years, with incomparable courage and endur- 
ance, she braved storm and shine by her husband's 
side, till in the autumn of 1921 she was laid to rest 
beside Old Machar Cathedral in her native city of 
Aberdeen. 



152 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

V : Over the Graves of the Fallen 

Amid many difficulties and dangers the work at 
Cape Maclear went steadily on, but six long years 
passed ere the first convert was baptised. These years 
were a supreme trial to faith, for besides other discour- 
agements there was much sickness, and four of the 
missionaries died. Cape Maclear had never been 
regarded as the permanent home of the Mission. It 
was not more unhealthy, perhaps, than any similar site 
on the Lake shore, but it was not central, and the pres- 
ence of the tsetse fly in the immediate neighbourhood 
made agricultural development impossible. Accord- 
ingly a new site was chosen at Bandawe, half way up 
the west side of the Lake, and here the Mission settled 
in 1881. 

This removal has been touchingly depicted as a 
tragedy and a defeat. Travellers who came expecting 
to find a hive of industry found Cape Maclear a place 
of graves and read in them disaster. No such feeling 
was in the heart of the great pioneer. To him Bandawe 
marked a big advance. Six months before the removal 
the first fruits of Darkest Africa had been reaped. The 
event is thus recorded in the Mission Journal : "Sab- 
bath, March 27th. — This is a red-letter day in the 
history of the Livingstonia Mission. By the blessing 
of God the work of the past years has not been for 
naught, nor has He suffered His word to fail. For 
long we here have been seeing the working of God's 
word in the hearts of not a few, and now, by God's 
grace, one has been enabled to seek baptism as a public 
confession of his faith in Jesus Christ." The convert 



LAWS OF LIVINGSTONIA 153 

referred to was Albert Namalambe, who continued to 
carry on the work at Cape Maclear till it was taken 
over by the Dutch Reformed Church, which has now 
a mission in Nyasaland. 

In the year of the removal to Bandawe another 
event of a different sort greatly widened the horizon of 
the Mission. This was the construction of the Ste- 
venson Road. From the first Dr. Laws had been 
anxious to develop legitimate commerce as an antidote 
to the slave trader and accordingly the African Lakes 
Corporation, formed three years previously to aid the 
Mission by opening up the country and developing its 
resources, had begun to make its presence beneficially 
felt in Nyasaland. One of its promoters, Mr. James 
Stevenson, offered £4000 for the construction of a 
road from the north end of Lake Nyasa to the south 
end of Lake Tanganyika, one condition being that a 
mission station should be planted on this highway into 
the far interior. The offer was gratefully accepted, 
and within a year of the removal to Bandawe, a new 
station was opened at Iwanda, on the line of the Steven- 
son Road. It was characteristic of the indomitable 
spirit of Dr. Laws thus to sound an advance over the 
graves of the fallen, and, as the conflict thickened 
round him, to have only the one desire, to "engage the 
enemy more closely." 

VI : Toil and Trial at Bandawe 

The years spent at Bandawe from 1881 to 1891 were 
a period of tremendous strain, under which many noble 
workers broke down. Some died in harness, others 
were invalided home, until at length Dr. Laws was left 



154 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

alone of all who had laboured at Cape Maclear. The 
ranks of the mission were kept steadily filled by fresh 
volunteers from home, chief of whom may be men- 
tioned Dr. Elmslie who came out in 1885, and was 
honoured of God to become the Apostle of Ngoniland. 

Bandawe had been chosen as the Mission centre 
because here the hills sweep back from the Lake, leaving 
a wide flat, which is thickly covered by the villages of 
the Atonga. These unhappy people, like all the dwellers 
on the Lake 'shore, were continually harassed by the 
wild Angoni raiders from the hills. So desperate was 
their condition that their villages were hidden in the 
•most secret and inaccessible places, or built on piles 
driven into the Lake. Sir H. H. Johnston, the British 
Commissioner, reported to the Foreign Office in 1894 
that, "but for the intervention of the Livingstonia mis- 
sionaries, the Atonga would have been almost wiped 
.out of existence by the raids of the Angoni."' A similar 
testimony is given by the Atonga themselves. As an 
old chief feelingly expressed it, "We hoed our gardens 
in the strength of Dr. Laws." 

It was only by an extraordinary display of courage 
and tact that this desperate situation was remedied. 
For years Dr. Laws at Bandawe and Dr. Elmslie up in 
the hills were more or less in daily peril. The work 
of evangelisation was heartbreakingly slow. In '1888 
Dr. Laws reported that "up till now no native of Ban- 
dawe or the district has yet been baptised, though one 
from Cape Maclear was." This may be regarded as 
the darkest hour before the dawn, for about this time 
the Mission was plunged into an overwhelming sea of 
troubles. 



LAWS OF LIVINGSTONIA 155 

The rainy season of 1886-87 na d reaped a terrible 
harvest of death. At one time not a single worker in 
the field was free of fever. News came down from 
Iwanda that, of the three workers there, Dr. Kerr Cross 
was prostrate with fever, and Mrs. Cross and Mr. 
Mackintosh were dead. Dr. and Mrs. Elmslie were 
reported ill at Njuyu. At Bandawe Dr. and Mrs. 
Laws had fever and their baby was believed to be 
dying. The other workers on the station were in no 
better state. Then, as if the place were a public hos- 
pital, two hunters stricken down with fever were car- 
ried in. About the same time a boat came across the 
Lake from Likoma, where the Universities' Mission 
had now established themselves, bringing an invalid, 
Rev. G. H. Swinny, for medical care. Dr. Laws, with 
a temperature over ioo° and hardly able to keep on his 
feet, tended the sick, and with his own hands made 
coffins for the dead. 

"You are nearing home," he said gently to Mr. 
Swinny. 

"Yes, Doctor, I know. It is the land I have long 
desired. Will it be convenient for you to bury me 
to-morrow ?" 

Convenient! What a world of Christian faith and 
hope and charity in that one word. Such is the spirit 
of the Church's pioneers, such the price at which the 
heathen world is won. "These lonely nights of watch- 
ing on the Lake," said Dr. Laws, "have burned them- 
selves forever into my heart." 

In 1887 the Ngoni peril became so acute that most 
of the Mission property at Bandawe was shipped to 
Cape Maclear. Dr. Elmslie buried his medicines under 



156 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

the floor of his house at Njuyu, and the missionaries 
held themselves ready to escape at a moment's notice. 
Had it come to the worst escape would have been well- 
nigh hopeless. Even at Bandawe armed guards were 
posted between the mission houses and the beach to 
cut off retreat. One never-to-be-forgotten night, when 
sleep was not to be thought of, Dr. Laws, peering 
anxiously out, could see the dim figures of these savage 
sentinels, and then he heard in the next room his wife 
pacing the floor with her baby in her arms, and softly 
singing "The Lord's My Shepherd." It sounded like 
the voice of an angel, and filled his heart with the 
peace of God. 

In that year also there came a big revival of the 
slave trade. It was occasioned by the appearance, at 
the north end of the Lake, of Mlozi, the most formid- 
able of all the slave raiders, who entrenched himself 
near Karonga, cut the Stevenson Road below Iwanda, 
and harried the whole surrounding country. He waged 
war on the African Lakes Corporation, and, in spite 
of their heroic defence of Karonga, he seemed likely 
to succeed in his declared intention of clearing the 
white man out of the country. One horrible scene 
was enacted near a lagoon to the north of Karonga. 
The fugitive Wankonde having taken refuge in the 
tall reeds and grass by the Lake shore, Mlozi's men 
set fire to the reeds and burned them out. Those who 
fled the flames were shot or speared, while those who 
plunged into the water fell a prey to the crocodiles which 
had swarmed to the horrid feast. Captain (afterwards 
Sir Fred. ) Lugard took part in the fighting with Mlozi, 
of which he has given a full account in his Rise of Our 



LAWS OF LIVINGSTONIA 157 

East African Empire. Being shot through both arms 
he spent some weeks of convalescence at Bandawe. 
Many years afterwards he wrote, "I have seen many 
missions since those days on Lake Nyasa, but yours 
remains my ideal mission, because it is so free from 
ostentation, and carries out so effective and thorough 
a work on such sound, practical lines. " 

To crown these troubles, in the same dark year the 
Portuguese asserted a claim to the whole of Nyasa- 
land, closed the Zambesi waterway, and sent an army 
of conquest up the Shire. The Mission was thus in 
the position of an army attacked in front and flank 
and suddenly finding its line of communications cut. It 
was a crisis to test the stoutest heart, but Dr. Laws 
never flinched nor had any thought but of holding out 
to the last. 

The crisis passed, and in a marvellously short time 
a complete change became visible in Nyasaland. God's 
hand turned darkness into dawn. The solid phalanx 
of heathenism began to show signs of breaking up, the 
forces of the Gospel triumphed in Ngoniland, and in 
1890 there came a season of rich blessing there. Vast 
multitudes assembled, not now to plan a bloody raid, 
but to hear the message of peace. They who before 
were the terror of the country, the Prussians of Nyasa- 
land, became the sweet singers of Central Africa. The 
very war-song they were wont to sing when they sent 
round the fiery cross among the tribesmen was now 
set to Gospel words which summon fathers and sons 
to the banner of Christ. 

Then Britain, roused at last by the urgent appeals 
of the Home Church, sent an ultimatum to Portugal, 



158 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

and in 1891 declared a protectorate over Nyasaland. 
This sealed the slave raiders' doom, and the inhuman 
traffic was finally ended in 1895, when Mlozi was tried 
and hanged for his many crimes. In the words of 
the old chief of the Wiwa, "All the people said, Tt is 
good/ " 

Ere Dr. Laws left Bandawe in 1891 the foundations 
of a Christian Church were firmly laid there, and in 
the following year his successor began to reap an 
abundant harvest of his years of patient sowing. At 
a Livingstone Centenary meeting held at Bandawe, 
Vyamba, a venerable tribesman, told how Dr. Laws 
at first had said, "Yes, war is thick enough about you, 
but it will not last for ever. You pray to God about it 
and see what happens/ 

" The white man lies,' said we. 

" 'No,' said the Doctor, 'it is not lies.' 

"And now," concluded the speaker with a thrill that 
went through his audience, "look here today. My heart 
warms. Jesus has been the life of us." 

VII: A Marvellous Tr cms formation 

In 1 89 1 Dr. Laws, whose health had been causing 
grave anxiety, left for Scotland in obedience to a per- 
emptory summons from the Home Committee. On 
this furlough he laid before the Church his plans for an 
educational institution which might be - to Central 
Africa what Lovedale was to South Africa. He 
travelled extensively in America, inspecting technical 
and agricultural colleges as well as any institutions or 



LAWS OF LIVINGSTONIA 159 

works where new and helpful ideas were likely to be 
picked up. Returning to Scotland he was sent as a 
deputy to the Calabar Mission in Nigeria to report on 
the possibilities of a training institution there. While 
in Calabar he received a strong impression of the dead- 
liness of the west coast climate and of the heroism of 
the men and women who under such conditions caf ried 
on the work. One of his fever patients was the famous 
Mary Slessor. "It was not to be wondered at," he 
wrote, "seeing that she started by night and walked to 
Creek Town, reached it at 5 a.m. dripping wet, got 
a change, some milk she needed, and was away in a 
canoe at 7 a.m." On the basis of Dr. Laws' report 
the Duke Town Institution was established in Calabar, 
and continues to flourish. 

His so-called furlough over, Dr. Laws returned to 
Nyasaland in 1894, taking with him a band of young 
and valuable recruits for the Mission, including James 
Henderson, now Principal of Lovedale. It had been 
agreed by the Committee before he left that he should 
now look for a suitable site for the Institution whkh 
he had planned, and which was to bear, by preeminence, 
the name of Livingstonia. No time was lost in set- 
ting about the work. In September Dr. Laws and Dr. 
Elmslie went prospecting among the hills towards the 
north end of the Lake. They were old friends and 
comrades in arms, who had been through many trials 
and perils together. Next to their religious faith the 
thing that had sustained them was their sense of hu- 
mour. The quiet chuckle of Dr. Laws was ever ready 
to bubble up in response to the great ringing laugh of 
Dr. Elmslie. Once it marked the turning point in a 



160 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

life and death struggle. Dr. Laws was down with 
fever at Bandawe and believed himself dying. Dr. 
Elmslie hurried down from the hills to his help, but in 
spite of all that skill and care could do, the patient's 
strength seemed gone. Dr. Elmslie commended his 
soul in prayer to God, then, moved by a sudden im- 
pulse, gave him a dig in the ribs. Dr. Laws responded 
with a laugh, and from that moment began to recover. 

Travelling northwards they made a thorough ex- 
ploration of the hills and valleys behind Mt. Waller. 
One night their camp was attacked by several lions, one 
of which sprang with a roar on Dr. Laws' tent and 
tore open the side. Dr. Elmslie, awaking suddenly and 
seeing the great rent, thought for one horrible mo- 
ment that the lion had made off with its victim, but a 
shout from the interior of the tent reassured him. As 
he said afterwards, "It was the most welcome sound I 
ever heard." 

Mt. Waller is a bold, altar-shaped promontory tower- 
ing above Lake Nyasa towards its northern end. Near 
it, there is a little plateau with a precipitous descent 
to the Lake, and richly wooded hills rising up behind. 
Here seemed the most promising site for the Institu- 
tion. Two streams, the Manchewe and the Kazichi, 
pouring over the cliff in cataracts side by side, gave 
assurance of an abundant water supply. Behind the 
waterfalls are some low caves, in which the miser- 
able natives were found to be hiding through fear of 
the Angoni. Dr. Laws crept in on his hands and knees 
to make their acquaintance. Seeing him burrowing 
like a terrier in a rabbit's hole, Dr. Elmslie announced 
with mock gravity, "Dr. Laws looking for a site for 



LAWS OF LIVINGSTONIA 161 

the Institution." "Well," was the retort, "could I be 
in a better attitude than on my knees?" 

It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to find on 
the face of the earth a spot where so dramatic and 
beneficent a change has been wrought within living 
memory. On the summit of the plateau, immediately 
above these hidden caves and dwellings, the Living- 
stonia Institution now stands. It is an extraordinary 
achievement, planted there in the heart of the wilds. 
Savage nature surges up to the very doors. Around it 
are forests and jungle where lions and leopards, ele- 
phants and rhinos freely roam ; some thousands of feet 
below glitters the blue Lake, whose shores are the 
haunt of the crocodile and hippopotamus. But on the 
plateau itself, how marvellous a transformation! A 
road has been built from the Lake shore which, twisting 
round corners, striding across ravines, clinging to the 
very face of the cliff, climbs up hand over hand to the 
top. An avenue, planted with Mlanje cedar, runs 
along the summit, leaving space for a line of buildings 
between it and the cliff edge. Here are the school, the 
hospital and the teachers' houses. Opposite are the 
post-office and the workshops, where engineering, car- 
pentry, printing, etc., are taught. Elsewhere on the 
plateau are to be found *a farmsteading and meal-mill, 
a saw-mill, a brickwork and a pottery. Through the 
liberality of Lord Overtoun, a lifelong friend of Liv- 
ingstonia, a water supply has been brought from the 
hills and turbines have been erected at the falls to gen- 
erate electric light and power for all the buildings. To 
the natives it was a crowning evidence of the white 



162 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

man's magic that he was able to make water run up- 
hill and light his house by pressing a button. 

The buildings of the Institution are plain in the ex- 
treme, but the plan is spacious, leaving room for fu- 
ture development. Everywhere there is evidence of a 
master mind with far-sweeping vision and profound 
faith in the future. One finds in Dr. Laws a mind 
capable at once of grasping a great conception and of 
patiently working out the minutest details. Of the lat- 
ter quality the following instance may perhaps be given. 
Entering a room where a native servant had laid the 
mat awry, he pounced down upon it and put it straight. 
Then looking up almost bashfully, he said in half- 
humourous self-defence, "People won't believe it, but 
you give the African a great lift when you teach him 
just to put things straight." Perhaps no fitter descrip- 
tion could be given of his own life's work than simply 
that — "teaching the African to put things straight." 
His forty-odd years in Central Africa have been largely 
occupied with trivial duties, yet he has laboured with 
immense cumulative effect and put many things straight 
in Nyasaland. 

Not content with his vast achievements he dreams 
of a more glorious future. Early one morning he led 
the writer into a thicket on the highest part of the 
plateau. 

"Here," he said, "is the site of the Overtoun Memo- 
rial Church, where the clock on the tower will be seen 
for miles around." 

Then, boring deeper into the thicket and standing 
up to the knees in the dewy grass, he waved his hands 
towards the surrounding trees, saying, "Here is the 



LAWS OF LIVINGSTONIA 163 

site of the permanent college buildings, and this is the 
quadrangle." 

A few moments later he emerged from the thicket 
and, standing in the open, looked eastward over a wide 
panorama of wooded hills and valleys, all of it the 
property of the Institution, the princely gift of the 
British South Africa Company. 

"The Home Committee," he said, "were very reluc- 
tant to be saddled with all this land, but the day is com- 
ing when it will be of great value. You know," he 
continued, speaking as one Aberdeen student to another, 
"what a blessing the Aberdeen University bursaries 
have been to the poor students of the north of Scot- 
land. Where did the funds come from? Much of 
it from lands gifted long ago to the University, not 
of great value at the time, but now a rich endowment. 
So will it be with these lands." 

As one listened one could foresee, in the light of the 
old man's faith and vision, the Institution becoming 
the University of Central Africa, and the keen-minded 
lads from all the surrounding tribes flocking up to 
its 'bursary competition. 

VIII : The Crowning Years 

The years from 1894 were years of steady expan- 
sion in the Mission. The opening of the stations at 
Karonga and Mwenzo carried the field of operations up 
to the frontier of German East Africa. Kasungu 
and Loudon became centres of activity in South Ngoni- 
land, from which the country was evangelised west- 
ward into the valley of the Luangwa. More recently 



164 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

a far outpost beyond the Luangwa was established at 
Chitambo among the people where Livingstone died, 
while from Mwenzo an advance was made southward 
along the Rhodesian plateau to Chinsali, near the 
Lubwa River. 

These developments, when studied geographically, 
reveal a strategy Pauline in its boldness. The advance 
was not made timidly from village to village, but cen- 
tral positions were occupied from which whole tribes 
could be evangelised. The average distance between 
the stations was seventy to a hundred miles, and round 
each of these centres there was gradually formed a wide 
network of out-stations, amounting in some cases to 
over a hundred. This steady expansion was accom- 
panied by a bountiful spiritual harvest, with occasional 
tidal waves of revival, which commanded the atten- 
tion of the whole Christian world, and made Living- 
stonia famous as one of the most wonderful triumphs 
of modern missions. 

The dominant influence of the Mission in Nyasaland 
may be gathered from an important political event 
which occurred in 1904. British authority had been 
established for years in South Nyasaland, but the 
Angoni had been left severely alone, that nation of war- 
riors being regarded as a hornet's nest, not to be lightly 
disturbed. Meantime the Gospel was making progress 
among them, and there was a growing desire to be in- 
corporated in the British Empire. Sir Alfred Sharpe, 
the Governor of Nyasaland, relied implicitly on Dr. 
Laws' advice, and the event justified his confidence. 
On September 2 he made a peaceful entry into Ngoni- 
land, accompanied only by Lady Sharpe and a few at- 



LAWS OF LIVINGSTONIA 165 

tendants, and after friendly conference with the chiefs 
received their willing allegiance. Writing to Dr. Laws 
of this remarkable event he said, "I was surprised to 
find the Chiefs already quite prepared, if not even 
glad, to accept the new condition of affairs. This is 
undoubtedly largely due to the influence exercised 
by your people." The Angoni, let it be remembered, 
are come of the same stock as the Zulus and the Mata- 
bele, whose contact with the British Empire is a record 
of costly and bloody wars. If the question be asked, 
"Why is the history of Ngoniland so different?" there 
is only one possible answer — Livingstonia. 

In 1908 Dr. Laws was called home to be Moderator 
of the General Assembly of the United Free Church. 
He obeyed with some reluctance, for court functions 
and ecclesiastical ceremonial were not in his line. But 
when he took the chair it did the Church good to see 
him, this weather-beaten pioneer, this man of his hands, 
and to hear his words, so straightforward and un- 
adorned. Speaking to the young missionaries on Con- 
secration Night, he said, "After thirty-three years of 
a rough and tumble experience, which I hope it will 
never be your lot to know, I can only say that if I had 
my choice, and even knowing what was before me, I 
would go forth to-day to the missionary field." Al- 
though busy throughout the year addressing meetings 
up and down the country and discharging the duties 
of his office, he found time for studies at Edinburgh 
University in bacteriology and tropical diseases. 

Returning to Central Africa in 1909, he resumed his 
labours with unflagging zeal, and the work of God 
prospered in his hand. In 1914, before the outbreak 



166 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

of the war, the report of Livingstonia stated that there 
were 14 organised congregations with 741 out-stations, 
having in connection with them a Christian community 
of over 38,000 souls. The number of schools was 
907, and of scholars almost 60,000. Native evangel- 
ists, elders and deacons share in the oversight of the 
congregations, and the whole is organised into a Pres- 
bytery which forms, with Blantyre Mission, the Church 
of Central Africa Presbyterian. That these many thou- 
sands have not been hastily gathered in, without due 
care and examination, may be judged from the fact 
that every candidate must spend! four years under 
Christian instruction, must learn to read, and finally 
must receive the approval of the native elders before 
admission to full membership. 

In May, 19 14, a historic assembly met in Bandawe, 
the mother station of the Mission. It was the occa- 
sion of the annual meeting of the Mission Council 
and Presbytery, but was made specially memorable by 
the ordination of the first three native pastors. The 
Council and Presbytery met daily for a week and dis- 
cussed such grave questions as the law of Christian 
marriage, the creed and government of the Church, and 
the support of the ministry. Native elders took their 
full share in the discussions, and appeared to realise 
the responsibility resting on them to lay the founda- 
tions of the Christian social order of the future. At 
the ordination service the spacious church was crowded. 
Atonga and Angoni mingled in their thousands, and so 
vast was the concourse of people that admission to the 
church had to be regulated by ticket. Of the three 
pastors to be ordained, one was a Tonga, the other 



LAWS OF LIVINGSTONIA 167 

two Angoni. All three were men fully trained and 
thoroughly tested by years of faithful service. They 
knelt down side by side and Dr. Laws laid his hands 
on them, with the hands of the Presbytery, and or- 
dained them, once mortal foes, now to be brother min- 
isters of the Gospel of Christ. It was a scene which 
could never be forgotten by those who were privileged 
to behold it. At the close of the service the writer 
asked Dr. Laws if he had ever dreamed of such a day 
as this. 

"Yes," he replied with animation, "I knew it would 
come. Never in the darkest day did I doubt it." 
"But did you expect you would live to see it?" 
He smiled, "Ah, that is another question." 
Not often is a heroic life so gloriously crowned. 
Well might he have sung his Nunc Dimittis. Forty 
long years before, in the might of his faith and cour- 
age, he had plunged into the darkest thicket of heath- 
enism, hewed out there a clearing, and planted a gar- 
den of God. Now the wilderness and the solitary place 
were glad for him, he had made the desert to rejoice 
and blossom as the rose. 

His own dominating thought has ever been that 
God's guiding hand is signally manifest in the history 
of the Livingstonia Mission. As he wrote in 1900, 
"Alike in the time and circumstances of its inception, 
through the years of preparation and seed sowing, on 
to the whitening of the fields and the beginning of a 
harvest full of bountiful promise, the goodness and 
mercy of the Lord has been manifested. So to Him 
we ascribe all the honour, glory, dominion and power, 
acknowledging Him as the source of all the blessing in 



168 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

which we now rejoice, while with humble gratitude we 
praise Him for the redemption He has brought to many, 
and is still bringing to other, tribes of that so long 
benighted land." 

IX : The Legacies of War 

When the world war broke out Livingstonia was 
immediately in the thick of it. The operations of the 
Mission touched the hinterland of German East Africa 
along the whole frontier from Karonga to Mwenzo. 
Indeed, before Germany thrust herself into that re- 
gion of Africa, the Mission occupied a station at Ma- 
lindu, which was abandoned when it was found to have 
come under German rule. The drawing of the fron- 
tier was a bitter disappointment to all who had, up 
till then, been labouring for the good of Nyasaland, 
for it cut through the middle of tribes, and tore away 
populous districts whose sympathies were all with 
Britain, as represented by Livingstonia and the African 
Lakes Corporation. Even on this remote frontier 
Germany was prepared for war. Mwenzo had to be 
abandoned, and Karonga was only saved after a stiff 
fight. 

The war inevitably disorganised the whole work of 
the Mission. Many of the teachers and people acted 
as carriers to the British forces, in which service thou- 
sands laid down their lives. When millions fell in 
the world war it was natural that no record should be 
kept of natives who died beside their loads on name- 
less forest paths, but their loyalty to the Empire should 
never be forgotten. Some of the medical missionaries 



LAWS OF LIVINGSTONIA 169 

were drafted into the Army Medical Service, others 
were put in charge of native transport. The Institution 
proved of inestimable value as a base of supplies to 
the troops operating from Karonga. Its post office 
was the point of departure for the despatch riders, its 
hospital was available for the wounded, and its meal 
mill was kept running day and night. No doubt these 
things were only a by-product, but it is worthy of note 
that all the money ever spent on the Institution was 
repaid tenfold in these terrible days of the world's 
need. 

The war bequeathed to Livingstonia a twofold legacy. 
On the one hand, a heart-breaking legacy of sin and 
moral confusion. Especially at Karonga the presence 
of white troops demoralised the people to such a de- 
gree that a report went round the villages that even 
Dr. Laws had given up the Christian faith and advised 
them all to return to heathenism. 

"How do you account for this?" said the mission- 
ary to his native elders as they sat together and wept 
over a shattered communion roll. 

And the elders answered, "You warned us against 
the sin of drunkenness, but we never knew what drunk- 
enness was till these white men came. You taught us 
to reverence the Sabbath, but they laughed it to scorn." 
And they went on thus through the ten commandments 
till the missionary was filled with a burning shame for 
his own countrymen who had struck so dastardly a 
blow to the Kingdom of God. 

The other legacy is an open door of service to the 
north. A fertile and populous country round the 
north end of Lake Nyasa is now incorporated in the 



170 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

Empire. The missions there are derelict, and it has 
fallen to Livingstonia to take their place and occupy 
the territory, for it seems unlikely that any German 
mission will again consent, even if allowed, to work un- 
der the British flag. This opens a vast new outlook. 
If the site of the Institution had a fault it was that 
it lay too near the north end of the field occupied by 
the Mission. Extensive tracts of what was German 
East Africa are nearer to the Institution than is South 
Ngoniland. Now the war has brought about the possi- 
bility of making the Institution central, and of build- 
ing up around it a strong supporting Church without 
which it can never fully serve its purpose. 

To this great new task the veteran Dr. Laws has 
girded himself with faith undimmed and a vision that 
moves out in ever widening circles towards the new 
heavens and the new earth. Of his own future, if he 
ever thinks at all, it would only be to repeat the words, 
written forty years ago in the first dark days of the 
Mission. "Here I must ever be fighting, working, 
watching, waiting, praying; rest and peace are the en- 
joyment, the heritage, of the land beyond," 



CHAPTER VII 

MACKAY OF UGANDA 

I : Stanley's Letter 

On November 15, 1875, a remarkable letter appeared 
in the Daily Telegraph. It had been written by 
Stanley in Uganda .and entrusted to a young Belgian 
who was to travel home down the Nile. The Belgian, 
however, was murdered by natives, and the letter, 
which was found afterwards on his dead body, came 
into the hands of General Gordon of Khartoum, by 
whom it was forwarded to England. It contained a 
stirring appeal to the Church to evangelise Uganda. 

The situation was in the highest degree interesting 
and romantic. Less than twenty years before, that 
vast inland sea, the Victoria Nyanza, had been dis- 
covered, with the Nile pouring out at its northern end. 
On the northwestern shore lay the territory of Uganda, 
which in comparison with the savage tribes of Central 
Africa seemed to have made considerable progress in 
civilisation. It possessed roads and bridges, an army 
and a fleet of canoes on the Lake. Decent clothing 
was worn by the people, who showed some skill in 
agriculture, building and iron work. The King, an 
absolute monarch, ruled the land with the aid of his 
chiefs and high officials. Stanley speaks of Uganda 

171 



172 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

as "the Pearl of Africa." At the time of his visit 
Mtesa the King, a man of intelligence, showed some 
interest in the Christian faith and expressed a desire 
that teachers should be sent out from England to 
Uganda. Hence Stanley's letter. 

It was a challenge that could not fail to be taken 
up. It fired men's imagination to think that, when at 
last the ancient Nile had yielded up the secret of its 
birth, there should be discovered near its source a 
kingdom more civilised than any other in Central 
Africa whose king, prematurely described as "an en- 
lightened monarch," seemed to be stretching out his 
hands to God. The Church Missionary Society 
promptly responded, and within six months of the 
publication of Stanley's letter a well-equipped party of 
eight missionaries left England for Uganda. Of these, 
the youngest but one, and, as the event proved, the 
most famous, was Alexander Mackay. 

II : A Missionary Engineer 

Mackay was the son of the Free Church minister of 
Rhynie in Aberdeenshire, and was born on October 
13, 1849. His father, who was a man of wide learn- 
ing, personally supervised the education of his boy, hop- 
ing one day to see him a minister. This idea, however, 
was not quite to the lad's mind. He had a passion 
for mechanics, and along with that a sense of the ro- 
mance of missions. On the long Sunday evenings in 
winter, when his father was holding service in some 
remote part of the parish, he never wearied of hear- 
ing his mother tell of Carey and Martyn, of Moffat 



MACKAY OF UGANDA 173 

and Livingstone. How to combine these diverse in- 
terests, in mechanics and missions, was the problem 
that began to occupy his thoughts. It was considered 
as prophetic of his subsequent career that when quite 
a child he used to go among the masons who were 
building the Free Church of Rhynie, and when they 
jocularly asked him, "Weel, laddie, gaen to gie's a ser- 
mon the day?" he would reply, "Please give me trowel, 
can preach and build same time." 

Mackay's family having removed to Edinburgh in 
1867, he entered Moray House, the Free Church Train- 
ing College for teachers, and completed the two years' 
course under Dr. Maurice Paterson. Thereafter, while 
maintaining himself by teaching in George Watson's 
College, he made a thorough study of engineering, both 
theoretical and practical. In 1873 he went to Germany 
to study the language and perfect his knowledge of 
engineering. For over two years he worked in Berlin 
and made many friends among the evangelical Chris- 
tians of the city. 

Meantime the idea of going to Africa as an engineer 
missionary had taken definite shape in his mind, and 
he had some correspondence with Dr. Duff and others 
on the subject. His proposal was something of a 
novelty, but was essentially sound. The value of medi- 
cal science as an aid to mission work had come to be 
recognised, and Mackay claimed that a knowledge of 
the mechanical arts might equally become a handmaid 
of the Gospel. Christian civilisation, including all 
the wonders of modern science, was a unity, which 
should be brought to bear, in its full weight, on the 



174 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

heathen mind. It was while revolving these things in 
his mind that he saw the appeal of the Church Mis- 
sionary Society for pioneers for Uganda, and, as there 
appeared no immediate prospect of an opening in con- 
nection with his own Church, he volunteered and was 
accepted. 

The Committee of the Society held a farewell meet- 
ing on April 25, 1876, and at that meeting Mackay 
made some very memorable remarks. Speaking last 
he said, "There is one thing which my brethren have 
not said, and which I wish to say. I want to remind 
the Committee that within six months they will prob- 
ably hear that one of us is dead." These words, spoken 
by a slim, blue-eyed boy, were startling, and there was 
a silence in the room that might be felt. Then he went 
on, "Yes, is it at all likely that eight Englishmen should 
start for Central Africa and all be alive six months 
after? One of us at least — it may be I — will surely 
fall before that. But," he added, "what I want to say 
is this. When that news comes, do not be cast down, 
but send some one else immediately to take the vacant 
place." 

In less than two years we find him writing mourn- 
fully, "There were eight of us sent out. Only two 
remain. Poor Africa ! When will it be Christianised 
at this rate?" Of the six who had fallen, two had 
died, two were murdered, and two invalided home. 
Mackay himself was the last survivor of the band, 
and was enabled to give fourteen years of unbroken 
service in Central Africa ere he was laid in his grave 
beside the great Nyanza. 



MACKAY OF UGANDA 175 

III : "Poor Moses" 

It was determined that the expedition should ap- 
proach Uganda from the east coast opposite Zanzibar, 
travelling up through the country which shortly after- 
wards became German East Africa. This involved an 
overland journey of 800 miles to the south end of Lake 
Victoria Nyanza. It was an undertaking of no small 
difficulty, not merely to make the journey, but to carry 
all the equipment necessary for the founding of the 
Mission, including a boat for service on the Lake. 
Mackay was in command of the rearguard of 200 car- 
riers laden with the boat and the heavier baggage. He 
encountered all the vexations, delays, and unforeseen 
troubles which are inevitable in African travel. 

"It occurs to me often as a poser," he writes, "if two 
hundred men on the march can give such endless trou- 
ble, what anxiety must poor Moses have been in on 
his march with more than two million souls? The 
Lord God was with him, seems to be the only explana- 
tion, and my fears are all calmed by the fact that this 
caravan is the Lord's, and He will give all necessary 
grace for guiding it." 

Several of the party were down with fever, and 
Mackay himself at last became so ill that he had to re- 
turn to the coast. Having speedily recovered his 
health, he received instructions from the Committee 
in March, 1877, not to start for Uganda till the rainy 
season was over, but to employ himself meantime in 
making a wagon road from the coast to Mpwapwa, 
230 miles inland. This work he successfully accom- 
plished in the summer of 1877, bridging the nullahs, 



176 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

and cutting his way in places through the densest 
bush. He writes, "Imagine a forest of lofty, slender 
trees, with a cop between of thorny creepers, so dense 
below that a cat could scarcely creep along and 
branched and intertwined above like green, unravelled 
hemp. The line of the road through it is a path wrig- 
gling left and right, as if it had followed the trail of 
a reptile, and almost losing itself here and there, where 
the creeping wild vine and thorny acacia have en- 
croached upon it. . . . Now the densest jungle has 
yielded to the slashing strokes of a score of Snider 
sword bayonets, which I have given my best men to 
carry." 

His next instruction was to arrange for wagon 
transport along the road. This was no light task, 
for not only the oxen but also the drivers had to be 
trained. In spite of these difficulties Mackay was 
successful in bringing his loads on to Mpwapwa, but he 
found that the natives of the interior viewed with 
great suspicion the long train of oxen on the white 
man's road. Accordingly, having arranged for the 
loads to be brought on by carriers, he pushed for- 
ward rapidly to the Lake. 

IV: Into the Lion's Mouth 

Meantime his comrades of the pioneer party had 
been sadly reduced. They reached the south end of 
the Lake, but within six weeks Dr. Smith, Mackay's 
great friend and fellow-countryman, was dead. 
Shortly afterwards, two others, Shergold Smith and 



MACKAY OF UGANDA 177 

O'Neill, having gone to the island of Ukerewe, were 
murdered in trying to shelter an Arab trader who had 
provoked the chief. Only one of the party had reached 
Uganda. 

Mackay, in his own straightforward and fearless 
way, determined to visit Ukerewe at once, and if pos- 
sible establish friendly relations with the chief, for he 
saw that the island commanded the approach to Uganda 
across the Lake. He felt, indeed, that he was putting 
his head into the lion's mouth, and the natives warned 
him that he would never leave the island alive. He 
went, however, in spite of these warnings, alone and 
unarmed. He remarks casually that he put some sul- 
phate of zinc in his pocket, "in case I should require 
an emetic, Ikonge, the chief, being known as a poi- 
soner!" His courage and frankness completely won 
the heart of the chief, who after a few days slew a 
goat in solemn pledge of blood-brotherhood. 

Returning to the mainland he set to work to fit up 
the boat which had been brought from the coast. The 
Mission stores were in <a state of absolute chaos. 
"Piled in heaps promiscuously lay boiler shells and 
books, cowrie shells and candle moulds, papers and 
piston rods, steam pipes and stationery, printers" types 
and tent poles, carbolic acid, cartridges, and chloro- 
form, saws and garden seeds, travelling trunks and 
toys, tins of bacon and bags of clothes, pumps and 
ploughs, portable forges and boiler fittings — here a cyl- 
inder, there its sole plate, here a crank shaft, there an 
eccentric. Despair might well be found written on 
my features as I sat down after my two years' march, 



178 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

to rest and look round on the terrible arrangement/' 
Ten days' hard work altered the scene. "The engines 
of our steamer now stand complete to the last screw, 
the boiler is ready to be riveted, tools and types have 
separate boxes, and rust and dust are thrown out of 
doors. It seems to me more than a miracle how much 
remains entire of the really admirable outfit which the 
able Directors of the Society supplied us with when we 
left England." 

He found the natives friendly and filled with a never 
ending wonder at the marvellous things he did. "When 
they see the turning lathe at work, or find me melting 
down the fat of an ox and turning out beautiful can- 
dles, their wonder knows no bounds. Again and again 
I have heard the remark that white men came from 
heaven. Then I teach this and that more intelligent 
fellow the use of various things, and try to impress 
upon all a truth I find them very slow to believe — that 
they themselves can easily learn to know everything 
that white men know. . . . Round comes Sunday, 
when tools are dropped, and the reason asked, 'Why.' 
I have my Bible, and tell that it is God's book, and He 
commanded the day of rest. Many know a little of 
Swahili which is, in fact, closely allied to their own 
language, and in that tongue I find many an oppor- 
tunity to teach the simplest truths of religion, espe- 
cially how God has come down among men. This 
'great mystery of godliness' is the astounding story to 
them, and many I find eager to learn to read that they 
may know the book which I say God Himself wrote 
for men." 



MACKAY OF UGANDA 179 

V : For the Soul of a King 

After two months of this work the boat was ready 
and Mackay sailed across the Lake to Uganda, which 
he reached on November i, 1878. Here he received a 
warm welcome from Mtesa, the King, who assured him 
of his friendship for England, and of his magnani- 
mous resolve never to make war on that country ! He 
fully believed himself to be the greatest monarch on 
earth, but though gifted with considerable intelligence, 
he proved in the end to be a sensual and capricious 
tyrant. For a time the omens were most favourable. 
The King, his chiefs and people were greatly impressed 
by Mackay's mechanical skill, so far surpassing any- 
thing they had ever seen. "Truly," they said, "Mackay 
is the great spirit." All the more readily they lis- 
tened to him while he tried to teach them the wonders 
of science and the greater wonders of grace. "God 
has blessed, and is still blessing, our work here," he 
writes, "for he has made the King and people willing 
at least to be taught. Fortunately Swahili is widely 
understood, and I am pretty much at home in that 
tongue, while I have many portions of the Old and 
New Testament in Swahili. I am thus able to read 
frequently to the King and the whole court the Word 
of God, and there is a mighty power in that alone. 
On Sundays I hold regularly divine service in court, 
and all join as far as they understand. Stanley be- 
gan the good work, and now we are enabled to carry 
it on." 

On Christmas Day he held a special service, when all 
the chiefs were in full dress and he explained the sig- 



180 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

nificance of the day. An Arab trader having just ar- 
rived with guns and cloth which he would sell only 
for slaves, Mackay vigorously opposed him. He spoke 
of the marvels of the human body and asked why such 
an organism which no man could make should be sold 
for a rag of cloth which any man could make in a day. 
Early in 1879 a party arrived to reinforce the Mission, 
having travelled up the Nile. The work now went for- 
ward hopefully. 

It was not long, however, before clouds began to 
darken the sky. In February a company of French 
priests appeared on the scene in Uganda, and com- 
menced that course of aggression which was destined 
to bear such bitter fruit. It is difficult to speak with 
moderation of their policy and conduct. With all 
heathen Africa to Christianise, Rome seems to have 
deliberately chosen the policy of following and sub- 
verting Protestant Missions. No doubt in the case of 
Uganda there were political, as well as religious influ- 
ences, at work. France, having interests in Egypt, 
coveted the head waters of the Nile, and was push- 
ing in from the west coast. The French missionaries 
in Uganda, to say the least, sympathised with this aim. 
They secretly supplied arms to their followers, whom 
they taught to look to France as their friend. Even 
after Uganda became a British Protectorate the in- 
trigue was carried on. The two Christian parties 
which arose in course of time were known as the Ba- 
Ingleza and the Ba-Fransa. The division, as Sir Fred- 
erick Lugard pointed out, was not a purely religious 
one, but was practically a division between those who 
obeyed the law and those who resisted it. 



MACKAY OF UGANDA 181 

These things were as yet hidden in the future, but 
meantime the coming of the priests created a most 
difficult and trying situation. They refused to ac- 
knowledge the Protestant Mission as Christian, claim- 
ing for themselves an exclusive right to that name. 
Mtesa was flattered by the presence of white men 
at his court, and displayed a lively interest in the vari- 
ous religious views which were pressed upon him. He 
seemed never to weary of question and argument. 
Moreover, as if to complete the religious confusion, the 
Arab traders in Uganda were advocating the claims of 
Islam, and had won a party to their side. The whole' 
situation was strange and probably unique, — a heathen 
King in Central Africa with Mohammedan, Roman- 
ist and Protestant competing for his suffrage. The 
strongest argument of the Arabs was that the white 
men would come and "eat up the country." They 
told the King how a steamer was now on Lake 
Nyasa, and slave raiding was killed in that region. This 
was a consideration which Mtesa could fully appreciate, 
for the slave trade was one of his most profitable activi- 
ties. 

As weeks passed and the discussion still went on, 
it became increasingly apparent that the King, for all 
his keenness and intellectual interest, was morally a 
trifler. He delighted to play off one party against 
another, but from first to last he remained a heathen. 
One day, in a moment of unusual candour, he summed 
up the position thus. "If we accept the white men's 
religion, we must then have only one wife each, while 
if we accept the religion of the Arabs, we cannot 
eat every kind of flesh." 



182 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

All through the year 1880 Mackay bore the strain 
of this conflict, sometimes with brightening hope, 
sometimes utterly cast down. On the 23rd of Decem- 
ber, after describing the departure of two plundering 
armies, he writes, "This is the fifth time in the course 
of two years that a great army has been sent by Mtesa 
into Busoga, not to war, but avowedly to devastate and 
murder, and bring back the spoil — women, children, cat- 
tle and goats. The crime is awful. The most heart- 
rending of Livingstone's narratives of the slave hunts 
by Arabs and Portuguese on the Nyasa and Tanganyika 
shores, dwindle into insignificance compared with the 
organised and unceasing slave-hunts carried on by this 
'enlightened monarch and Christian king/ We feel 
sorely downcast. Our last hopes seem gone. The 
lads who had learned the most, and seemed most im- 
pressed, have been put out of the way. The few chiefs 
of whom we had hopes have gone back, while the other 
chiefs and the King seem only daily to become more 
hardened and hopelessly sunk in every form of vice 
and villany. But is any case too hard for the Lord?" 

VI : "Great News" 

In March, 1881, three Baganda envoys, whom Mtesa 
had sent to England eighteen months before, returned 
home. They had seen the glories of England and been 
graciously received in audience by Queen Victoria, 
and it was hoped that their return would bring an in- 
fluence favourable to the Mission. This hope, how- 
ever, proved vain. The envoys had many wonders to 
tell, of seas and ships and cities. "We have no coun- 



MACKAY OF UGANDA 183 

try at all," they said. But they immediately resumed 
their heathen life, and one of them showed himself a 
bitter enemy of the Mission. 

About the same time a plague broke out in Uganda. 
Many died and the people became panic-stricken. Mac- 
kay, having no knowledge of the nature of the disease, 
refused to prescribe for it, but he urged upon the King 
the enforcement of sanitary precautions which did 
something to hinder the spread of the trouble. The 
Arabs had increased in their hostility towards Mackay 
and they brought the most atrocious charges against 
him, declaring that he was a criminal lunatic who had 
escaped justice in his own country and was plotting 
fresh crimes in Uganda. It suited the humour of the 
King to give ear to these charges, but he well knew 
them to be false, and besides he thought Mackay far 
too clever and useful a man to be driven out of the 
country. 

Meantime Mackay went on steadily with the work. 
His barter goods were all either spent or stolen, and he 
must needs keep his forge going to earn his daily bread. 
But he began to gather round him an increasing band 
of disciples. Some would stand beside him at the 
bench while they recited their reading lesson, and when 
small portions of Scripture were printed in the lan- 
guage of Uganda they were eagerly bought up. One 
day in October, 1881, a slave brought a letter which 
he had laboriously written with a home-made pen and 
ink of soot. It ran thus. "Bwana Mackay, Sembera 
has come with compliments and to give you great news. 
Will you baptise him, because he believes the words of 
Jesus Christ?" It was "great news" indeed, for Sem- 



184 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

bera was a man of intelligence and exemplary life, and 
he became the first fruits of the Gospel in Uganda. 

The following Christmas Mackay records a touch- 
ing story of a boy who, after being under instruction 
for some time, took ill and died. Finding the end 
near he asked a heathen lad to sprinkle water on his 
head and name over him the names of the Father, Son 
and Holy Ghost. "I do believe," Mackay concludes 
with conviction, "that this baptism by a heathen lad 
has been written in heaven." On March 18, 1882, the 
first five converts were baptised, and thus was consti- 
tuted the native Christian Church of Uganda which 
was destined so soon to pass through the fires of perse- 
cution to a glorious victory. 

VII : A Royal Funeral 

The life of a pioneer missionary is full of the strang- 
est vicissitudes and most extraordinary experiences. 
Within a week the King's mother died, and he deter- 
mined to give her a burial of unusual splendour. Hav- 
ing learnt that the great ones in England bury their 
dead encased in three coffins, he was not to be outdone. 
Could Mackay make three coffins? Yes, if the- ma- 
terial was supplied. It proved, however, a bigger job 
than Mackay had bargained for and cost him a month's 
hard work. Everything had to be on the biggest pos- 
sible scale. A small army of native smiths and la- 
bourers was commandeered, trees were cut down and 
dragged in from the forest, while copper trays, drums, 
and vessels of every sort were hammered out to make 



MACKAY OF UGANDA 185 

the metal shell. After infinite trouble the three mon- 
strous boxes were finished, the outermost "with strong 
ribs like a schooner and looking like a small house 
rather than a cofTn. ,, The body of the old queen was 
enclosed, packed in valuable cloths, and the whole was 
finally deposited in a huge pit thirty feet deep, which 
was filled with cloths and covered up. Mackay esti- 
mated, — and the Arabs by an independent calculation 
reached the same figure, — that £ 15,000 worth of cloth 
was buried in the grave. 

The fame of these obsequies resounded through the 
land and gave Mackay a unique reputation among the 
people. One happy result flowed from it. Walukaga, 
the King's head blacksmith, was brought under the in- 
fluence of Mackay and listened eagerly to the Gospel. 
By and by he became a Christian and a leading mem- 
ber of the Church. 

Mtesa was ill of a tedious disease, and in his trouble 
he turned to the heathen witchdoctors. They recom- 
mended that human sacrifices on a large scale should 
be offered upon all the surrounding hills. This atro- 
cious order was promptly carried out. Executioners lay 
in ambush along the highways leading to the capital 
and seized all passers-by. A chief or a rich man might 
ransom himself, but for a poor man there was no es- 
cape. When a sufficient number of victims was col- 
lected they were all slaughtered on the appointed day. 
In 1884 Mtesa died as he had lived, a heathen. Mac- 
kay' s services were again in request to make the King's 
coffins. On this occasion two sufficed of more moder- 
ate dimensions. 



186 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

VIII : Mwanga the Persecutor 

The new King was Mwanga, a lad of seventeen, who 
had been on friendly terms with the Mission and prom- 
ised to show it every favour. Like more august mon- 
archs, however, when he came to the throne he forgot 
his promises. It soon became apparent that things had 
taken a decided turn for the worse. Mwanga was weak 
and vain, as well as vicious, and accordingly he began 
to display his power and to play the part of the haughty 
tyrant. He flung himself .with zest into every heathen 
abomination, and because the Mission condemned these 
he became a bitter enemy and a persecutor. 

On June 30, 1885, he set the crown of martyrdom 
on the heads of three native Christian lads. Mackay 
and his colleague, Mr. Ashe, were going down to the 
Lake accompanied by two of their boys when they were 
suddenly set upon and driven back home with violence, 
while the two boys were arrested. That night the 
Mission house was searched, but fortunately the Chris- 
tians had gone into hiding. Next morning Mackay 
heard that the two lads, together with a third, had been 
burnt to death. It was said that in the fire they sang 
a hymn in the language of Uganda, "Daily, daily sing 
His praises." "Our hearts are breaking," Mackay 
writes. "All our Christians dispersed. We are lonely 
and deserted, sad and sick." 

Mwanga, shortly after, sent for Mackay and pre- 
tended that the execution had been carried out with- 
out his knowledge. No doubt some of his principal 
chiefs were more bitterly hostile than the poor weak- 
ling of a King himself, who was swayed to and fro 






MACKAY OF UGANDA 187 

by his passions and fears. He now adopted an atti- 
tude of more friendliness, deposed seventeen heathen 
chiefs and put others, friendly to the Mission, in their 
place. Mackay writes, "The King has saved himself 
and us by this sharp stroke. God be thanked." 
Mwanga was now receiving Christian instruction, and 
things began again to look hopeful. 

In the autumn, however, there occurred a tragic 
event which clouded all the brightness. This was the 
murder of Bishop Hannington and his party on the 
borders of Uganda. The story is one of the most fa- 
miliar in missionary annals. Early in the year Han- 
nington had been appointed the first bishop of East 
Africa, and after some time spent at the coast he set out 
for Uganda. Instead of journeying to the south end 
of the Lake as the pioneer party had done, he chose 
a route much farther to the north, and travelled inland 
from Mombasa through the country now traversed by 
the Uganda railway. This route was shorter and 
healthier than the other, and gave direct access to Ugan- 
da round the north end of the Lake. Unfortunately the 
Bishop was ignorant of the state of feeling in Uganda. 
The Arabs had never ceased to affirm that the white 
men would come to eat up the country, and this had 
recently been confirmed by German annexations at the 
coast. The King and his chiefs felt comparatively safe 
behind the great barrier of the Lake, but they believed 
that real danger would arise when white men ap- 
proached the country by the north end of the Lake, 
where it lay most exposed towards the coast. 

It was this very route that Bishop Hannington had 
unhappily chosen. When the report of his advance 



188 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

reached Uganda there was a great stir at the court and 
consternation at the Mission. Mackay sent the boat 
across to the northeast corner of the Lake in an en- 
deavour to intercept the Bishop, but without avail. 
Unconscious of all this, the caravan from the coast 
moved forward till near the borders of Uganda. The 
Bishop, leaving the main body, pushed on more rapidly 
with fifty carriers, and approached the point where 
the Victoria Nile flows out of the Lake. Here the 
whole party were made prisoners, and after a week 
of suspense came the order for their execution. Han- 
nington met his death like a brave man and a Christian, 
bidding his murderers tell the King that he died for 
the Baganda. 

The news of this catastrophe soon reached the mis- 
sion. Mackay heard the whole story from eye-wit- 
nesses, and fortunately recovered Hannington's private 
diary, which he sent home. But no word was spoken 
openly about the murder as Mwanga denied all knowl- 
edge of it and became very threatening. His favour- 
ite page, having ventured to say that it was wrong to 
kill the white man, was by the King's instant order 
taken out and burnt to death. 

Of this sorrowful time Mackay writes, "We had 
been enjoying much blessing in our work, and many 
more have been baptised. Now no one is allowed to 
come near us under pain of death. Yet they do come, 
chiefly at night. Mwanga would be glad to be rid of us, 
yet he will not let us go, all of us at any rate, as he 
means to keep us as hostages, because he dreads punish- 
ment. At the same time he threatens to put us in the 



MACKAY OF UGANDA 189 

stocks, and challenges England and the whole of Eu- 
rope to release us." 

Yet not for a moment did the great missionary cease 
from his work, as the following brief entry shows, 
"Writing out revision of St. Matthew's Gospel. Ashe 
busy setting it up. Time of persecution has always 
been a printing time." He also arranged that the 
Christians should meet in small companies at the 
houses of the native elders, and thus they would be 
trained to rely upon their own resources. 

Meantime things went ill with Mwanga. His eyes 
gave him trouble, then his store of powder blew up, 
killing a number of the people and burning down his 
house. He took refuge in the house of his Katikiro, or 
Prime Minister, but next day it was struck with light- 
ning and another explosion took place. Mwanga was 
now certain that the missionaries had bewitched him, 
and he vowed vengeance. He was a contemptible crea- 
ture, a poor besotted drunkard, brandishing a knife and 
boasting what he would do, but unfortunately for the 
country he was King, and the lives of millions were 
in his hands. 

The storm burst at the end of May, 1886, when an 
order was given for the arrest of all the Christians. 
Eleven were killed the first day and a systematic hunt 
was begun in all directions. Of the murders, mutila- 
tions and tortures that followed there is no complete 
record, save in the books of God. But the bitterness 
of the persecution may be judged from the fact that 
in one day thirty-two Christians, including many of 
the leaders of the Church, were slowly burnt to death. 
These martyrs made a noble end, so that the head exe- 



190 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

cutioner, like the centurion at the Cross, was com- 
pelled to bear witness, reporting to the King that "he 
had never killed such brave people before, that they 
died calling upon God." 

It will not surprise those acquainted with Church 
history that this persecution, instead of dismaying the 
Christians, inspired them with new faith and courage. 
Many seemed utterly fearless, and even rash. Others, 
who had made no confession previously, now came 
forward desiring baptism. Mr. Ashe tells the story 
of one, named Kiobe, who had asked for baptism. 
" 'Do you know what you are asking?' I said to him. 
'I know, my friend/ he replied. 'But/ I said, 'you know 
if you say you are a Christian they will kill you/ 'I 
know, my friend/ 'But/ I said, 'suppose people asked 
you if you were a reader, would you tell a lie and deny 
it and say no ?' 'I shall confess, my friend,' he replied. 
Mackay and I both thought him worthy of the rite. 
So he was baptised there and then." 

IX : "The Universe is God's' 

As the persecution continued the two missionaries 
thought it might ease the situation for their converts, 
and lessen the King's dread of the white man if they 
left the country for a time and went to the south end of 
the Lake. Mackay, however, had been putting forth 
all his mechanical skill to win the favour of Mwanga 
and his chiefs. Accordingly he was considered too use- 
ful a man to be allowed out of the country, but per- 
mission was at length given to Mr. Ashe to leave. Af- 
ter his departure in August, 1886, Mackay was alone in 



MACKAY OF UGANDA 191 

Uganda for a year. It was a year of hard work and 
great anxiety. "I am plodding on, teaching, translat- 
ing, printing, doctoring, and carpentering. . . . Praise 
God ! St. Matthew's Gospel is now published complete 
in Luganda, and rapidly being bought. I merely stitch 
it, with title-page, and supply loose cover. Binding, 
by and by. This work, with the packing and giving 
medicine to the Christians ordered off to war, and sit- 
ting up to all hours, teaching households, has thor- 
oughly exhausted me. I am almost entirely broken 
down with fatigue and anxiety and want of sleep." 
Again he writes, "What sadness and melancholy comes 
over me at times, and I find myself shedding tears like 
a child ! Then those wonderfully consoling psalms of 
David and Asaph, which send a thrill of joy through 
my whole being. This all but omnipotent reign of 
evil weighs one down, and then the exultant hope of 
its eternal destruction, and the ultimate triumph of 
good, cheers me up to more endurance, and persever- 
ance to the end." 

The hostility of the Arabs increased, and their 
cry about the white men eating up the country became 
more incessant. Stanley was now approaching Uganda 
from the Sudan, and it was said that if once he and 
Mackay met it would mean the ruin of the country. 
The French Fathers, also, who were playing a deep 
game of their own, encouraged this idea. "The King 
himself said that had the Arabs told him 'not to let 
Stanley and Mackay meet,' he would have looked on 
their words as merely enmity, but when a white man 
said this, it must be true." 

In the circumstances Mackay felt compelled to press 



192 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

for leave to depart. Fortunately, at this juncture, a 
missionary called Cyril Gordon arrived at the south 
end of the Lake. Mwanga, who was familiar with 
the renowned General Gordon of Khartoum, took a 
fancy to having a missionary of that name in his coun- 
try. So it was agreed that Mackay should cross the 
-Lake, and Gordon come to take his place. He left 
Uganda in July, 1887. 

Mackay, about this time, was earnestly pressing the 
condition of Uganda upon the attention of the Church 
at home. He saw that European control of some kind 
was inevitable, but he had little hope of the develop- 
ment of the country and the prosperity of the Mission 
unless a railway were built from the east coast to the 
Lake. He speaks of it as the one sure means of 
"breaking the backbone of native cantankerousness." 
He had no interest in the expansion of Empire, and he 
was no advocate of armed intervention, but his heart 
bled for the sufferings of the Christians of Uganda, 
and the more widespread horrors of the slave trade. 
Why, he asked, should Christendom stand by and see 
Christians slaughtered? Why should England supply 
the guns and powder that made the slave-raider irresist- 
ible? It seemed to him no sufficient reply to say that 
the African was only suffering what the early Chris- 
tians had suffered, and that he must work out his own 
salvation. As well might one argue that he must be 
left alone to invent his own steam engine, and painfully 
build up his own civilisation, instead of being led by a 
shorter road and taught to profit by the experience of 
other nations. 

Mackay was well aware of the difficulties of the 



MACKAY OF UGANDA 193 

problem, but like other missionaries he welcomed the 
appearance of civilised government in Africa in the 
interest of the common people of the land. Writing 
to his colleague, Mr. Ashe, who had gone to England to 
inform and rouse public opinion, he says, "To relieve 
men from the wrongs under which they perish, to se- 
cure freedom for the oppressed, yet not by 'blood and 
iron,' is a crux indeed for statesmanship. We want 
not so much an arm of flesh but heads of wisdom, 
human hearts, and helping hands. There is no need 
for gunpowder, that remedy is even worse than the 
disease. . . . This African problem must he solved, 
and in God's name it shall be solved, for God means 
it to be solved. It is not for the sake of the few scat- 
tered and despised missionaries that we are determined 
that this end shall be attained, but for the sake of 
Africa itself. Brutality must cease in God's universe, 
for the universe is God's, not the devil's. . . . The 
chronic bloodshed and cruelty, practised in inner 
Africa, cannot be ended by gunboats catching prizes 
on the ocean. What is that but plugging up the aper- 
ture that the pus may find no exit, while all the time 
we are destroying the blood by daily administering a 
deadly poison, — arms and ammunition, support and 
countenance, to Mwanga and other butchers of our 
black brothers ? The rights of poor men, who wish to 
live lives of peace, are more divine than are the rights 
of royal robbers and murderers.' ' 

X : "The Best Missionary Since Livingstone" 

Mackay now settled at Usambiro at the south end of 
the Lake, where he set to work to organise a mission 



194 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

station, in preparation for the arrival of Parker, the 
new Bishop, who was expected soon with reinforce- 
ments. The party arrived, and for a short time Mac- 
kay, so long a solitary, enjoyed the delight of Chris- 
tian fellowship. But very soon Bishop Parker and 
Blackburn, one of his companions, died, Walker crossed 
the Lake to join Gordon in Uganda, another was in- 
valided home, and Mackay was once more alone. 

Meantime there was serious trouble in Uganda. ^Mo- 
hammedan and Christian chiefs united to expel 
Mwanga, who had plotted a wholesale massacre. Then 
the Mohammedans, by a sudden coup d'etat, overthrew 
the Christian party and wrecked the Mission. Within 
a year the Christians had made terms with Mwanga, 
and restored him to his throne, as they vainly hoped, a 
humbler and a wiser man. In August, 1889, Mackay 
had the pleasure of welcoming Stanley on his return 
from the relief of Emin Pasha in the southern Sudan. 
They were three weeks together at Usambiro, and 
Stanley, who had long been familiar with Mackay's 
work, wrote of him with the warmest admiration as 
"the best missionary since Livingstone. " "I was 
ushered in," he says, "to the room of a substantial clay 
structure, the walls about two feet thick, evenly plas- 
tered, and garnished with missionary pictures and pla- 
cards. There were four separate ranges of shelves 
filled with choice, useful books. 'Allah ho Akbar/ 
replied Hassan, his Zanzibari head-man to me, 'books ! 
Mackay has thousands of books, in the dining room, 
bedroom, church, everywhere. Books! ah, loads upon 
loads of them !' . . . He has no time to fret and groan 
and weep, and God knows, if ever man had reason to 






MACKAY OF UGANDA 195 

think of 'graves and worms and oblivion/ and to be 
doleful and lonely and sad, Mackay had, when, after 
murdering his bishop, and burning his pupils, and 
strangling his converts, and clubbing to death his dark 
friends, Mwanga turned his eye of death on him. And 
yet the little man met it with calm blue eyes that never 
winked. To see one man of this kind, working day 
by day for twelve years bravely, and without a sylla- 
ble of complaint or a moan amid the 'wilderness,' and 
to hear him lead his little flock to show forth God's 
loving kindness in the morning, and His faithfulness 
every night, is worth going a long journey for the 
moral courage and contentment that one derives from 
it. . . . Like Livingstone he declined to return, though 
I strongly urged him to accompany us to the coast." 
Stanley's company passed on their way homeward, leav- 
ing "that lonely figure standing on the brow of the 
hill, waving farewell to us." 

The next visitor to Usambiro was Bishop Tucker, 
but there was no Mackay to welcome him. Stanley was 
not alone in urging Mackay to come home. The Direc- 
tors of the Society and his friends pressed upon him to 
take his furlough, but he would not quit his post till 
reinforcements should arrive. He sent home an ur- 
gent appeal for "a strong batch of good men," saying 
that the Continental idea of "every man a soldier," is 
the true watchword for Christian missions. Ere the 
reinforcements arrived his own call had come. After 
a brief, sharp attack of fever he died on February 8, 
1890. His last work was the translation into Luganda 
of the fourteenth chapter of John's Gospel — the story 



196 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

of the many mansions of the Father's house. Then 
from his fourteen years of exile he went home. 

Six months later Bishop Tucker arrived at Usam- 
biro, and thus describes the scene. "The Mission sta- 
tion, having been the work of Mackay, was of course 
well built. There was the Mission house — there the 
workshops — over there the printing house, and away 
yonder the cattle kraal. To see Mackay's tools lying 
idle and rusting in the workshops — the forge with its 
dead embers, the lathe motionless — was a pathetic and 
touching sight. But still more touching was it to wend 
one's way to the little burial place some distance off, and 
to stand by the graveside of the three who lay there — 
Mackay, Parker, and Blackburn." . . . "The loss of 
Mackay," he concludes, "was the heaviest blow that 
had yet fallen on the Mission. His faith, his cour- 
age, his intellectual capacity, his untiring industry, com- 
bined to form one of the most remarkable characters 
of the age in which he lived. It will be long ere the 
impress which he left on the lives and characters of the 
Baganda will be effaced. It will be longer still ere 
his noble example of devotion to the highest ideals, 
of courage in the face of almost insurmountable dif- 
ficulties, of self-sacrifice and self-denial, ceases to in- 
spire men to a participation in the noblest of noble en- 
terprises, — the bringing to a saving knowledge of the 
truth those who sit in darkness and the shadow of 
death." 



CHAPTER VIII 

GRENFELL OF THE CONGO 

George Grenfell was one of those who were drawn 
to the Dark Continent by the immortal story of Liv- 
ingstone, and like his hero, besides being a great mis- 
sionary, he attained to the front rank as an explorer. 
The mighty Congo, father of African rivers, and sec- 
ond only to the Amazon among the rivers of the world, 
drains the whole country from the Great Lakes to the 
Atlantic and from the Sudan to the Zambesi. Its 
tributaries would dwarf the rivers of other lands, 
and they join with the main stream to form a mag- 
nificent network of waterways in the very heart of the 
Continent. For a quarter of a century Grenfell moved 
along these waterways in his little steamer, the Peace, 
ever seeking to win an entrance for the Gospel into sav- 
age hearts, ever ambitious of bearing the good news to 
more distant tribes, and, ere he finished his course, he 
had the joy of being welcomed with Christian hymns 
in places where once he had been met with showers 
of poisoned arrows. 

I : From Cornwall to the Cameroons 

Grenfell was born on August 21, 1849, at ^ e 
village of Sancreed in Cornwall, and was the son of 
a country carpenter. Those who are disposed may 

197 



198 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

find ample evidence in his career of the proverbial dog- 
gedness of the Cornishman. His family, however, re- 
moved to Birmingham when he was only three years 
old, and that city became his home till he reached man- 
hood. 

It is remarkable how trivial an event may deter- 
mine the course of a human life. A curious instance 
of this is found in the spiritual history of Grenfell. 
His family belonged to the Church of England and 
he was sent to St. Matthew's Sunday School along 
with his younger brother. There happened, however, 
to be a boy at the school who bullied them, and to es- 
cape from him Grenfell and his brother left, and went 
to a Sunday School connected with Heneage Street 
Baptist Church. This Church was henceforward his 
spiritual home, and at the age of fifteen he was re- 
ceived into its fellowship by baptism. 

Regarding the beginnings of his spiritual life he af- 
terwards wrote, "My earliest religious impressions of 
a serious kind date back to the early sixties, when the 
great wave of awakening that followed the revival of 
'59 was passing over the country. My interest in Africa 
began even earlier, being aroused by the pictures in Liv- 
ingstone's first book, and deepened when I was about 
ten years of age by the reading of the book itself. 
Among the earliest of my resolves as a Christian was 
that of devoting myself to work in Africa, and, though 
I cannot claim that it never wavered, it was certainly 
ever after my dominant desire." 

On leaving school he entered a warehouse, where 
he showed considerable aptitude for business, and came 
in time to have very excellent prospects. But his in- 



GRENFELL OF THE CONGO 199 

terests were centred in church and mission work. He 
belonged to a band of strenuous young men, connected 
with Heneage Street Church, whose Sunday, begin- 
ning with a prayer meeting at seven o'clock in the 
morning, included about seven services, with tract dis- 
tribution in the intervals, and who rose on Monday 
morning like giants refreshed to attend a class in ele- 
mentary Greek at the minister's house at half past six! 
They formed a Theological Class, and invited the 
Roman Catholic bishop to appoint some competent per- 
son "to discuss with us in a calm and friendly spirit the 
points upon which we vary in belief." On the bishop 
failing to reply Grenfell was instructed to write a letter 
of expostulation. Their energies found a more profit- 
able outlet in publishing a little quarterly magazine, 
called Mission Work, the object of which was to set be- 
fore its readers "proofs from all quarters of the globe 
that the Gospel is, as of old, the power of God unto sal- 
vation." 

In September, 1873, Grenfell gave up business and 
entered the Baptist College, Bristol, to study with a view 
to becoming a missionary. As was to be expected he 
did not find student life altogether to his taste, but his 
character and missionary enthusiasm made a lasting 
impression upon the men of the College. After his 
death a fellow-student wrote of him, "Grenfell and 
I were in the same year, though he was very consider- 
ably my senior. I looked up to him with a great deal 
of respect, and loved him right away. Everybody 
loved him. He was strong as a lion, gentle as a 
woman, intensely sympathetic and absolutely devoted. 
There were missionary students who changed their 



200 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

minds. Grenfell's mind was fixed. Africa was in 
his brain and upon his heart." 

After a year's training Grenfell was accepted by 
the Baptist Missionary Society for service in Africa. 
The veteran missionary, Alfred Saker, was at home on 
furlough from the Cameroons, and it was arranged 
that Grenfell should accompany him on his return. 
They sailed from Liverpool the week before Christmas, 
1874, and reached the Cameroons in the following Jan- 
uary. 

The Cameroons Mission, like the Presbyterian Mis- 
sion in Calabar, had its birth in the West Indies. The 
plantation slaves who for generations had been swept 
away from the shores of the Gulf of Guinea longed to 
carry the Gospel back to their homeland. In 1840 two 
Baptist missionaries from Jamaica settled on the island 
of Fernando Po, which lies in the inmost recess of the 
Gulf of Guinea, about four degrees north of the Equa- 
tor. In 1844 they were joined by Saker, who began 
work on the mainland and during thirty years of heroic 
service laid the foundations of a Christian community. 

In the Cameroons Grenfell served an apprenticeship 
of three years during which he was being prepared for 
his great work on the Congo. His station was at King 
Akwa's Town, on the south bank of the Cameroons 
River, about twenty miles from the sea-coast. Here 
he made acquaintance with that pitiful mixture of sav- 
agery and civilisation so characteristic of the West coast 
of Africa — kings dressed like dignified scarecrows, 
chiefs who would cringe for a bit of tobacco, men re- 
joicing in such names as Brass Pan, Pocket, and Liver- 
pool Joss, women with a dozen brooches fastened in 



GRENFELL OF THE CONGO 201 

their hair for lack of a dress to pin them to. And 
combined with all this, as if to prevent the onlooker 
from regarding it lightly as mere pantomime, there 
was stark naked heathenism with its superstitions, 
its cruelties, its hopelessness. 

Early in 1876 Grenfell was married, but in less than 
a year his wife died, and he tasted the first deep sor- 
row of his life. Fortunately he was joined about this 
time by Mr. Comber who became his dearest friend 
and fellow worker for the next ten years, till he also 
fell a victim to the deadly climate of the West Coast. 

With the instincts of a pioneer Grenfell was assidu- 
ously plying his canoe along the various waterways, 
seeking to win the confidence of the people. He found 
many of their villages unpleasantly inaccessible. Some 
were buried in deep swamps, others were perched on 
rocky hills, these sites having been chosen for refuge in 
the old slave raiding days. Very soon he became con- 
vinced of the advantage of pushing on into the interior. 
For reasons both of health and of efficiency it was de- 
sirable to get away from the swampy coastland with 
all its corrupting influences. "In all my journeyings," 
he writes, "I have kept in view the object of finding the 
best route into the interior, for I believe that if the 
same amount of effort which is bestowed here were be- 
stowed upon some inland station it would produce far 
greater results. ... It would be a grand thing to be 
able to push away right beyond the influences that oper- 
ate so adversely, and it can be done. ... It is cheer- 
ing to one who longs to get inland to know that the 
sympathy of the Society runs in that direction too." 



202 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

Ere he could give effect to these ideas in the Cameroons 
he was called away to service in a vastly bigger field. 

II : Tlie Giant Congo 

Six hundred miles south of the Cameroons the 
Congo enters the Atlantic. Although the mouth of this 
giant river was discovered by the Portuguese in the 
15th century little or nothing was known of its course. 
A hundred miles from the sea, navigation was barred by 
a region of cataracts, beyond which the map was blank. 
In 1877 all this was changed. Stanley took up the 
problem of the African waterways where Livingstone 
left it. Setting out from the east coast he passed be- 
yond Lake Tanganyika and struck the Lualaba at 
Nyangwe. From there he followed the course of the 
river northwards to Stanley Falls, and then west- 
wards till he appeared at the Congo mouth. Among 
other important discoveries he showed that, beyond 
the region of cataracts, there was a thousand miles of 
magnificent waterway to the Stanley Falls, above which 
the river was again navigable southwards to Nyangwe. 
All along the course of the river great tributaries gave 
access to the country for hundreds of miles on either 
bank. The vast extent of this river system may be in- 
dicated by saying that if it were superimposed upon 
the map of Europe it would cover the whole area from 
the Shetland Isles to Smyrna, and from Moscow to the 
Pyrenees. At last Equatorial Africa lay open from 
the west coast, and drew the eager eyes of explorers 
and traders, of missionary societies both Protestant 
and Romanist, and, alas, also of the devil in the shape 
of King Leopold of Belgium. 



GRENFELL OF THE CONGO 203 

The Baptist Missionary Society had for some time 
been considering the feasibility of work on the Congo, 
and upon Stanley's discoveries becoming known a 
prominent supporter of the Society, Mr. Arthrington, 
immediately offered £1000 to start the mission, and 
expressed the hope "that soon we shall have a steamer 
on the Congo, if it be found requisite, and carry the 
Gospel eastwards, and north and south of the river, as 
the way may open, as far as Nyangwe." Thus en- 
couraged the Society instructed Grenfell and Comber 
to proceed to the Congo and break new ground. The 
feelings with which Grenfell received these instruc- 
tions may be given in his own words to the Committee. 
"The decision of the Committee to undertake this new 
effort we feel to be the right one, and pray most ear- 
nestly that it may prove to be so. God seems to hold 
out far more glorious prospects of success there than 
appear to be possible here. The difficulties there may, 
indeed, appear less because they are farther off than 
those by which we are surrounded here. However, if 
I stayed here I should never give up trying to open a 
way for the Gospel, and though the difficulties there 
may, on a closer acquaintance, prove even greater 
than those at Cameroons, I shall still try, for the vic- 
tory is sure." 

In July, 1878, the pioneer party landed at the Congo 
mouth, where they were cordially received by a Dutch 
trading house, and shortly after they proceeded up the 
river in their own boat. They were welcomed at San 
Salvador by the King of Kongo, but were unable 
to reach the upper river owing to the determined hos- 
tility of the natives who wounded Comber so that he 



204 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

narrowly escaped with his life. Next year, however, 
reinforcements arrived from England, and by follow- 
ing a route along the north bank of the river they 
succeeded in reaching Stanley Pool, immediately above 
the cataracts. The road to the upper river being now 
open, a steel boat was sent out for the use of the Mis- 
sion, and Mr. Arthrington offered money to build a 
small steamer. "I believe the time is come/' wrote that 
generous and farseeing man, "when we should make 
every necessary preparation to carry out the original 
purpose of the Congo Mission — to place a steamer on 
the Congo River, where we can sail north-eastward 
into the heart of Africa for many hundred miles unin- 
terruptedly, and bring the glad tidings of the everlast- 
ing Gospel to thousands of human beings who now are 
ignorant of the way of life and immortality. I have 
therefore, now to offer to your Society one thousand 
pounds towards the purchase of a steamer of the best 
make and capacity, and its conveyance and launch on 
the river at Stanley Pool, and three thousand pounds 
for the perpetual maintenance of such steamer on the 
Congo and its affluents, until Christ and his salvation 
shall be known all along the Congo, from Stanley Pool 
to +he equatorial cataracts." 

Ill : Pioneering in the Peace 

The result of this was the building of the mission 
steamer, the Peace, which will ever be associated with 
the name of Grenfell. "For months, which added up 
to years, she was the home of his wife and babes, who 
accompanied him in his eventful voyaging. Her plates 



GRENFELL OF THE CONGO 205 

and rivets were as dear to him as his own skin, and 
the throb of her engines was like the beating of his 
own heart. Her missionary honour was to him a thing 
beyond price, and when the State seized her for pur- 
poses alien to her holy work, his grief was passionate, 
as though the ship had a character to be blasted, and 
a soul to be stained." 

The Peace was a little screw steamer, drawing 
twelve inches of water, and constructed in sections to 
enable her to be taken to pieces for transport over the 
cataracts. During 1882 Grenfell was at home superin- 
tending the construction of the steamer. By December 
the work was finished and he sailed from Liverpool 
with his precious freight, accompanied by a young 
missionary engineer. On coming home to England 
Grenfell, who had remarried in 1879, kft ms wife on 
the Congo where she was now waiting his return with 
a baby whom he had never seen. He reached the mis- 
sion station of Underhill at the foot of the cataracts 
only just in time to see his baby die. The young 
engineer also died not long after, and Grenfell was left 
with the whole responsibility of the steamer on his 
shoulders. The task of transporting it beyond the 
cataracts was no light one. Each load had to be car- 
ried through two hundred miles of difficult country, 
covered with long grass and cut up with ravines across 
which the packages had to be slung by ropes and pul- 
leys. After months of labour and anxiety the loads 
were brought safely through to Stanley Pool. 

These early days of the mission were heavy with 
many sorrows. The good seed was sown in tears, while 
man after man fell from the ranks. Grenfell was almost 



206 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

in despair. "Single-handed, as four of our stations 
are at this moment, who can be surprised at disasters? 
... If more men don't soon come, the Congo Mission 
will collapse, and the work that has cost so much will 
be thrown away." 

Cheered by the news that two engineers were on 
the way out, Grenfell resolved to leave the building 
of the Peace to their skilled hands, and meantime to 
explore the course of the river in the steel boat. Ac- 
cordingly he voyaged for three weeks up the south 
bank, and then, crossing the river, returned along the 
north bank. He found the natives timid and suspi- 
cious but generally friendly. He was amused by the 
antics of a medicine man who, on the approach of a 
storm, forbade the rain to fall, and kept on forbidding 
it throughout the course of a two hours' downpour at 
the end of which he claimed the victory. But every- 
where sad evidences were seen of the unhappy condi- 
tion of the people. 

Grenfell writes, "How much this part of Africa 
stands in need of help I cannot tell you, words seem 
utterly inadequate. I cannot write you a tithe of the 
woes that have come under my notice, and have made 
my heart bleed as I have voyaged along. Cruelty, sin, 
and slavery seem to be as millstones around the necks 
of the people, dragging them down into a sea of sor- 
rows. Never have I felt more sympathy than now I 
feel for these poor brethren of ours, and never have 
I prayed more earnestly than now I pray that God will 
speedily make manifest to them that light which is 
the light of life, even Jesus Christ, our living Lord." 

On his return from this trip Grenfell was met with 



GRENFELL OF THE CONGO 207 

sad news. Two of the mission staff were dead, both the 
engineers had died on the way out, and his father also 
was dead. "But we have not lost heart," he writes. 
"We cannot but believe that more help will be speedily 
forthcoming. Such trials do not kill the faith nor 
quench the ardour of Christians." 

He now felt that he must himself undertake the 
building of the Peace. With such help as was avail- 
able he successfully accomplished the work. "She 
lives, she lives," cried the natives when they saw the 
steamer move in the water. The missionaries were 
no less enthusiastic. "You will have heard," wrote 
Comber, "how good God has been to us, especially in 
the matter of the steamer — how dear old Grenfell has 
alone accomplished the gigantic task of reconstructing 
her. I can tell you we are proud of Grenfell, and 
thankful to God for him." Grenfell himself said he 
thought that the Peace had been "prayed together." 

The maiden voyage of the Peace was a complete 
success. Grenfell and Comber steamed on her half 
way up to Stanley Falls, turning aside to explore sev- 
eral of the chief tributaries. In travelling thus among 
strange and savage tribes they found themselves time 
and again in positions of peril, and Grenfell complains 
of the physical effort required to keep on smiling when 
things might be on the brink of tragedy. It was heart- 
breaking to encounter ever fresh examples of an almost 
incredible ingenuity in wickedness. But over against 
that was the joy of "taking for the first time the light 
of life into those regions of darkness, cruelty, and 
death." 

For the next year or two Grenfell led a wandering 



208 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

life, plying his little steamer to and fro along the Congo 
waterways, and surveying the country in the interests 
of missionary advance. Not without many thrilling 
experiences. "Thank God we are safely back," he 
writes, at the end of one of these voyages. "It might 
have been otherwise, for we have encountered perils 
not a few. But the winds, which sometimes were 
simply terrific, and the rocks, which knocked three 
holes in the steamer when we were running away from 
cannibals, have not wrecked us. We have been attacked 
by natives about twenty different times, we have been 
stoned and shot at with arrows, and have been the 
mark for spears more than we can count." "The 
people are wild and treacherous, for several times, after 
a period of apparently amicable intercourse, without any 
other cause than their own sheer 'cussedness,' as the 
Yankees would say, they let fly their poisoned arrows 
at us." 

At one place he encountered a tribe of friendly can- 
nibals who offered him a wife in exchange for a fat 
boatman on whom they had fixed their longing eyes. 
At the Stanley Falls he met the notorious Tippoo Tib, 
mentioned by Stanley, who dominated the whole region 
west of Tanganyika and was raiding along the banks of 
the upper Congo. "We counted," he says, "twenty 
burned villages and thousands of fugitive canoes." 

The geographical importance of Grenfell's work 
was immense. He traced the course of the Kasai River 
southeast towards the Zambesi. He ascended the great 
tributary, the Mubangi, northwards till it brought him 
to the Sudan, and he showed that at the great bend of 
the Congo the Aruwimi flows in from the east and 



GRENFELL OF THE CONGO 20^ 

opens a waterway almost to Uganda. These discov- 
eries raised the inspiring hope that the various mis- 
sionary forces working in from the east and west 
coasts might soon join hands across the continent. 

IV : The Belgian Octopus 

Forces of another sort, however, were at work. As- 
early as 1883 Grenfell notes the high-handed policy of 
the Belgian Expedition. "They have been most un- 
scrupulous, even in these days of small things — what 
will they be with the whole thing fully developed ?" 
Alas, how little did the Christian word imagine where- 
unto this thing would grow ! Two years later, on his 
return from an up-river voyage, Grenfell was stag- 
gered by a letter from the Administrator intimating 
that all his maps and observations belonged to the 
Government, and rebuking his presumption in send- 
ing them home to the Baptist Missionary Society. 
With restrained indignation he replies, "Your intima- 
tion that in the British Colonies subjects are not free to 
go where they will, and that the State has a 'right to 
possess itself of the fruit of a civilian's labours,' comes 
upon me as a great surprise." 

But the Belgian octopus had fastened on the Congo, 
and Europe tamely suffered King Leopold to assert the 
monstrous doctrine that this vast region was his pri- 
vate property, and all its inhabitants his slaves. How 
charmed at first were the natives to discover that the 
juice of the rubber vine had a value in the white man's 
eyes, and could enable them to buy the glittering trin- 



210 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

kets on which their hearts were set ! How soon, with 
spirits crushed by forced labour, floggings, imprison- 
ments, mutilations and murders, they pronounced their 
verdict of despair, "Rubber is death." These things 
were as yet hidden in the future. 

The year 1887 was memorable in the annals of the 
Mission as "the Black Year," when six of the mission- 
aries died in seven months. Grenfell was at home on 
furlough, but on hearing of the first four deaths he 
hastened his return to the field, although his health 
was precarious. On reaching the Congo he was met 
with the news of two more deaths. Friends of the 
Mission at home were stunned by these losses, and 
spoke of withdrawing from so deadly a field. But 
Grenfell was resolute. "We can't continue as we are," 
he wrote. "It is either advowee or retreat. But if you 
retreat, you must not count on me. I will be no party 
to it, and you will have to do without me. I might 
plead with the Churches that for the sake of our great 
Head, for the sake of the terrible sin-stricken 'heart 
of Africa,' that out of love for and regard to the 
memory of our dear Comber, who died just a year ago, 
that for each and all of these reasons they should keep 
their pledges, but my heart is hot within me, and I feel 
I cannot plead. If love and duty and sacred promises 
are nothing, nothing that I can say will avail." 

Faith triumphed, and in the next three years the 
blanks were filled and three new stations were estab- 
lished on the upper river. Grenfell settled at Bolobo, 
some distance above Stanley Pool, and it continued to 
be his home for sixteen years. He describes the place 
as "a sort of bottle neck" on the river, but at the said 



GRENFELL OF THE CONGO 211 

bottle neck the Congo is two miles wide, and can be 
called narrow only as compared with its width above 
and below, where it expands to six or seven miles. 

In these days Grenfell was much alone, at his sta- 
tion or voyaging in the Peace. "Eh, Tom, lad," he 
exclaims in a letter to an old friend, "it is a shrivelling- 
up sort of work, so much alone, and surrounded by so 
much sorrow and sin." Yet he loves the solitude, for 
he finds that he has greater liberty in talking to the 
people when there are "no critical whites about." He 
has leisure for many long thoughts. "There is noth- 
ing like work in the Mission field," he writes, "for 
widening one's horizon. Where I am exactly, I don't 
know, any more than a good many celebrities seem to 
know where they are. I know John 3 :i6, and that's 
good enough holding-ground for my anchor. As you 
say, Christianity wants more of Christ's Spirit and less 
Theology. So say I, my dear Tom. Our Christianity 
is too much a matter of words, and far too little a 
matter of works. One might think that works were 
of the Devil, by the assiduity with which the great 
proportion of our Church members keep clear of them." 

Wrestling with the difficulties of translation he can 
find no word in the language to express the idea of 
forgiveness. Unhappy Congo, where no one has ever 
known what it was to forgive or be forgiven ! Yet the 
work is not without encouragement. In 1889 he 
records, "At Bolobo, on the first Sunday in March, I 
held the first Baptismal Service on the upper Congo, 
and on Sunday last I opened the first meeting house. 
Being Easter Day we had a talk about the Resurrection, 



212 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

and altogether a very enjoyable service. About seventy 
natives were present." 

In 1890 the Belgian authorities, in spite of vigorous 
protests by the Mission, commandeered the Peace for 
their own use. Grenfell was profoundly moved. 
"They are taking my heart's blood in taking the Peace/' 
he said. "The best thing that could happen to the 
poor Peace, would be for her to run on a rock, and 
sink. She will be no more the old Peace, when they 
have done with her. The soul has gone out of her! ,, 
Then, starting to his feet, he exclaimed, "I go to Eng- 
land to agitate." He went to England, and so effectu- 
ally did he agitate that the Belgian authorities were 
fain to climb down with the best grace they could, and 
the Peace was restored to her owners. The King of 
the Belgians, perhaps by way of atonement, conferred 
on Grenfell at a personal interview the insignia of 
"Chevalier of the Order of Leopold." Grenfell hu- 
morously described himself as feeling "like a barn 
door with a brass knocker," but the day came when he 
publicly declared that he could no longer wear the in- 
signia with honour. 

V: Sorrows Public and Private 

In 1891, with the consent of the Mission, Grenfell 
was appointed Commissioner to settle the southern 
boundary of the Congo Free State. This work, which 
involved six months of hard travel through difficult and 
unknown country, he completed to the satisfaction of 
the authorities, neither he nor the Mission being a 
penny the richer by it 



GRENFELL OF THE CONGO 213 

On returning to Bolobo in September, 1892, his 
first task was to build the new mission steamer, the 
Goodwill, which he had brought out from England a 
year before, and had expected would by this time 
have been afloat. Then the Peace was so badly worn 
that she had to be half rebuilt. Always the Mission was 
short-handed through illness and death of workers. 
Often Gr en fell was alone in charge of the two steamers, 
and the big forward movement on which his heart 
was set was continually delayed. Yet the work made 
progress. A printing press was established at Bolobo, 
and the Church there steadily increased. Grenfell 
describes the happy time he had with his boys and girls 
at the Christmas of 1894, with "a leg of buffalo in the 
nick of time for roast beef," and a famous tug of war, 
ending in a broken rope and a sudden jumble of legs 
and arms. But he adds, "I've had anything but a 
Merry Christmas," and he goes on to speak of his many 
burdens, chiefly the conditions of the Bolobo people, 
their superstitions, lawlessness, witchcraft and quarrel- 
ling. "How it is these people have escaped the fate 
of the Kilkenny cats, I can't imagine. It can only be 
explained by the fact that they are always buying 
slaves, and that they have not always been so blood- 
thirsty as they are now. Poor Bolobo ! I wish I 
could see more readiness to accept what they know and 
feel to be the Truth, which we try to explain to them. 
My heart is very, very sad at times, as I think of them 
heaping up judgment against themselves." 

There are moments when he grows impatient at 
the sluggishness of the home Church. "I wish to good- 
ness I could get our folk fervid enough to embark on 



214 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

some more or less 'madcap' scheme, such, for instance, 
as the redemption of the promises we made some 
eighteen or nineteen years ago, when we talked of 
Lake Albert and the Nile. . . . Don't think I've 
dropped pioneering because I'm tired of it. I never 
think of it but my soul burns to be up and off again." 
In 1896 he liad the joy of planting a new station at 
Yakusu, near the Stanley Falls, and the remarkable suc- 
cess of this new mission was a great comfort to him 
amid the trials and sorrows of his later years. 

The Congo atrocities were now being brought more 
and more fully 4 to light. Into that tragic story it is 
impossible here to enter. Grenfell was slow to believe 
the worst. He clung to the hope that the excesses com- 
mitted 'by local agents would be checked and punished 
by the Government, but at last he was compelled to 
realise the bitter truth. King Leopold, that arch-hypo- 
crite, had scattered his myrmidons over the Congo with 
orders to get rubber at whatever cost, and, while pro- 
fessing to spend thousands in philanthropic efforts to 
uplift Central Africa, he was drawing in millions sat- 
urated with African Wood. 

The missionaries saw the tribes enslaved, tortured, 
mutilated, delivered over to the tender mercies of 
native soldiers, many of whom were cannibals, and all 
to provide dividends of a thousand per cent to the 
royal rubber company. What could they do but voice 
in the ears of humanity the bitter cry of a perishing 
people? This, of course, was mightily inconvenient to 
the authorities. So a Commission for the Protection 
of the Natives was appointed, and Grenfell and other 
missionaries were asked to serve on it. But the whole 



GRENFELL OF THE CONGO 215 

thing proved to be a blind, and Grenfell indignantly 
resigned. "You can easily imagine," he writes, "the 
Protestant missionary is not a popular man just now 
on the Congo." Every obstacle was thrown in the 
way of the Mission. Grenfell was informed that cer- 
tain children must be taken away from his school and 
handed over to Roman Catholic missions, because 
"being a Roman Catholic State it had no power to 
place orphans under any other than Roman Catholic 
tutelage!" "It is very significant," Grenfell remarks, 
"that the way should be opened up for English Roman 
Catholics, and closed against us. Evangelical Chris- 
tianity does not breed the dumb cattle beloved of offi- 
cialdom." 

In 1899 Grenfell suffered an irreparable loss in the 
death of his oldest daughter, Pattie, who had come out 
from England while yet in her teens to join the Mis- 
sion. After a few months' work she was struck down 
with fever while voyaging with her father in the Peace, 
and only lived long enough to reach Bolobo and expire 
in her mother's arms. She was the fourth of their 
children to find a grave on the Congo. Next year Gren- 
fell' s own health gave way, and he had to come home to 
England. It seemed, indeed, as if his day was done, 
but he rallied, and November, 1891, saw him again on 
the Congo. 

VI : The Joy of Harvest 

His last term of service was deeply shadowed and 
saddened by the frightful sufferings of the natives under 
Belgian rule, and by the increasing hostility of the 



216 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

authorities who persistently refused to grant new sites 
to the Mission. Yet amid many sorrows he tasted of 
the sweet joys of harvest. In 1902 he writes, "You 
will be glad to know that here at Bolobo, shorthanded 
as we are, we are not without evidences of progress 
and blessing. People are more willing to hear, and 
give heed to the message they have so long slighted. In 
fact many are professing to have given their hearts to 
the Lord Jesus, and there are signs of good times 
coming." Again he writes, "Our services are crowded 
as they have never been before. Some are beginning 
to talk of building a bigger chapel. . . . God's Spirit 
is manifestly working among the people. We are all 
compelled to allow it is not our doing, but God's." 

In his voyages, also, up the river, he sees many signs 
of happy change. Thus he writes of one place, "A 
few weeks more than twenty years have elapsed since 
I first landed at the foot of the same cliff, and was 
driven off at the point of the native spears. The recep- 
tion was very different this time. The teacher and a 
little crowd of school children stood on the beach to 
welcome us, and I spent a very pleasant time in the 
village on the plateau just beyond." And again, "I 
shall never forget one evening, a few weeks ago, as we 
were looking for a good camping place among the 
reed-covered sandbanks, about half way between this 
and Yakusu. There was a threatening sunset, and we 
sought a shelter from what promised to be the stormy 
quarter. Then suddenly we heard strike up, 'All Hail 
the Power,' from on board one of the big fishing canoes 
among the reeds. We had not observed the canoe, 



GRENFELL OF THE CONGO 217 

but the crew had recognised the Peace, and gave us 
what was to me a glorious welcome which will long 
remain a blessed memory. Whose heart would not be 
moved to hear 'Crown Him Lord of All' under such 
circumstances ? It was just about this same place that, 
twenty-one years ago, we came first into view of the 
burning villages of the big Arab slave-raid of 1884. 
I little thought to live to see so blessed a change, and 
my heart went forth in praise. Yes, God's Kingdom 
is surely coming." 

Grenfell still had the ardent spirit of the pioneer, 
and retained in a wonderful degree his physical vigour. 
He explored the Aruwimi eastward to within eighty 
miles of Uganda. On another voyage he ascended 
above the Stanley Falls and followed the Lualaba 
southward to forty miles beyond Nyangwe. His great 
desire was to advance along the line of the Aruwimi, 
and join hands with the C.M.S. Mission in Uganda, 
but the Belgian authorities interposed wearisome delays 
until he was in despair. 

At last, in October, 1905, permission was given to 
settle at Yalemba near the mouth of the Aruwimi, and 
Grenfell made haste to occupy the place. The voyage 
up river occupied six weeks, and after discharging 
his stores at Yalemba, he turned the steamer south 
to Yakusu, where his heart was much refreshed by 
the work of God. It had been agreed that one of the 
missionaries at Yakusu should become Grenfell's col- 
league at Yalemba, but he confessed that he dared not 
take any of them away from so great a work. So he 
returned to Yalemba alone. 



218 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

VII : "The Death of Tata Finished" 

But his strength was spent. After struggling on 
for several weeks against fever and increasing weak- 
ness he at last consented to seek help. His native boys 
gently carried him on board the Peace and steamed 
down the river to the nearest station at Bapoto. Here, 
in spite of every effort, he gradually sank. Near the 
end he looked up at the dark circle of sorrowing faces 
gathered round his bed, and said, "Help me, my chil- 
dren, I am dying. Pray for me." Then later he added, 
"Jesus is mine. God is mine." 

He died on July ist, 1906. One of his native boys, 
recording the simple story of his burial, concludes 
with exquisite beauty, "Then we sang another hymn. 
Last of all we closed the grave, replacing the earth. 
And so the death of Tata (Our father) finished." How 
fitly spoken ! For Grenfell's place is among the living, 
not the dead. While strength endured he still advanced, 
leaving behind him the graves of his children, set like 
milestones along the Congo banks. His own is now 
the farthest. So he died. But the inspiration of his 
holy zeal, and of his love for Christ and Africa, remains 
a deathless thing. 




CHAPTER IX 

COILLARD OF THE ZAMBESI 

"The banyan tree," wrote M. Coillard, "is the true 
emblem of the Church of God. Each one of its mighty- 
branches bears roots, each root that touches the soil 
and grows there becomes a new trunk which in its own 
turn must spread its branches farther and strike new 
roots." It is no less a true emblem of his own life 
and work. Having struck his roots deep in Basutoland 
and guided the growth of the Church there for twenty 
years he became the pioneer of that Church's mission 
to Barotsiland and nourished the first upspringings 
of Christian life in the regions beyond the Upper Zam- 
besi. 

I : A Son of the Huguenots 

Frangois Coillard was born on July 17, 1834, at 
Asnieres-les-Bourges, a village in Central France. He 
came of peasant stock, and when only two years old, 
on the death of his father he was left with his mother 
in circumstances of deep poverty. The attachment 
between the widowed mother and her son was peculiarly 
warm and tender. The family belonged to the French 
Protestant Church and Frangois was brought up in 
an atmosphere of warm evangelical piety and mission- 
ary enthusiasm. He never forgot the joy of his first 

219 



220 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

missionary gift, consisting of money which he earned 
by gathering dung off the public road and selling it for 
a trifle to the schoolmaster. Yet his mother shrank 
from the thought of giving up her boy to the cause. 

"Oh, mother," he said one day, "how splendid it 
must be to be a missionary.' , 

"Yes, my child, it is a much finer thing than even 
to be a pastor." 

"Why should not I become a missionary myself ?" 

"Oh, my child," exclaimed the fond mother in sudden 
alarm, "be anything else you like but not that. You 
would be lost to me." 

Nevertheless the idea persisted, and after he passed 
through a crisis of conversion the impulse became irre- 
sistible. His mother's opposition was at length over- 
come, less by argument than by the influence of secret 
prayer. Rising in faith to accept the sacrifice, she 
wrote, 

"My child, I understand now that God is calling 
you. Go, I will not keep you back. I had always 
hoped you would be the staff of my old age, but after 
all it was not for myself I reared you. And the good 
God will not forsake me if He sends you to the 
heathen." 

He was accepted for training by the Paris Mission- 
ary Society and on the completion of his studies he 
was ordained at Paris in May, 1857. On that occa- 
sion he closed his address with these words, which 
finely express the spirit of the man: 

"Pray for me that I may be faithful to my Master, 
faithful unto death. Pray, oh, pray, all and earnestly, 
that I may grow grey in His service, and that He may 






COILLARD OF THE ZAMBESI 221 

grant me the joy of seeing my ministry close only 
with my death.' ' It was a prayer which was answered 
to the full. 



II : Life in Basutoland 

His destination was Basutoland, South Africa, where 
the Paris Missionary Society had carried on a mission 
since 1833. The Basutos, a powerful Bantu tribe, 
formed in those days an independent kingdom under 
their great chief, Moshesh. The strength of their king- 
dom lay in the mountainous region of the Drakens- 
berg, west from Durban, where Natal borders on Cape 
Colony and the Orange Free State. So placed, it could 
not fail to be a storm centre in the days when Boer 
and Briton were contesting possession of the country 
and when tribal power was as yet unbroken. 

On Coillard's arrival at Cape Town he found war 
raging in Basutoland. The Boers of the Orange Free 
State had invaded the territory and burnt some of the 
French Mission stations. On peace being restored the 
Mission was reorganised and the newly arrived mis- 
sionary was sent to Leribe in the extreme north of 
Basutoland. The district was under the rule of Molapo, 
the ablest but most intractable of the sons of Moshesh. 
Moshesh himself, a man of intelligence and strong 
character, was deeply interested in Gospel truth and 
before his death made open profession of his faith. 
The case of Molapo his son was very different. Clever 
and well instructed in Bible truth, he had at one time 
made a Christian confession but was now a hopeless 
renegade. He seemed to have a double personality. 



222 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

On Sunday he would exhort his people to be converted, 
while secretly he opposed and persecuted. In later life 
he became subject to fits of epilepsy and ended his days 
little better than a raging maniac. 

Into such a situation the young and inexperienced 
missionary was thrown and left to his own resources. 
One of his colleagues wrote of him, "Few young mis- 
sionaries have had a lonelier life or one of more entire 
self-sacrifice than his during the three years he passed 
there alone before Mme. Coillard came out to him, 
surrounded by an entirely" heathen population, hearing 
nothing from morning till night and often all night 
through but the wild shouts, the din of their heathen 
dances, their drunken brawls. His food at that time 
consisted of native bread with thick milk and pumpkin. 
I remember him spending days knee deep in water, 
cutting the reeds with which to cover his first little 
cottage. At that time there was not a single Christian 
in the whole district with whom to hold Christian fel- 
lowship." 

So unpromising was the field that the Conference 
of i860 proposed to give up the station of Leribe. 
Coillard, however, was resolute. "Do they think I am 
made of wood, with a heart of stone? Do they not 
know that it is just because I have suffered at Leribe 
that my heart is so much attached to it?" 

In February, 1861, he was married at Cape Town 
to Christina Mackintosh, who had come out from 
Scotland to join him. It was the fulfilment of a long 
deferred hope and the beginning of a perfect married 
life of thirty years. Mme. Coillard, the daughter of 
a Scottish minister, high spirited and fearless, saga- 



COILLARD OF THE ZAMBESI 223 

cious and tactful, above all of an intensely religious 
and devoted spirit, became the never failing helper and 
solace of her husband, and the companion of all his 
wanderings till, worn with toil and travel, she was 
laid to rest under a lone tree beyond the Zambesi. 

The work of the mission went forward prosperously 
and they had the joy of baptising their first converts. 
Owing to the hostility of the chief and other difficul- 
ties the building of a permanent house was at first 
impossible and for two years they made their home 
in the wagon and a tent. When at last a house of 
three rooms was finished Mme. Coillard "felt like a 
princess." They were not destined, however, to enjoy 
it long. 

Ill : War and Exile 

In 1864 war again broke out, Boer commandos 
raided the country, and the wildest disorder prevailed 
everywhere. Quarter was neither given nor received. 
Boer and Basuto shot each other at sight. For months 
the Coillards were isolated in a war-tortured country 
within sight of burning villages and bloodshed. Tying 
a white flag on the end of a long reed, M. Coillard 
started across country for the home mail which had 
not come to hand for six months. When about sixty 
miles from home he was struck down with fever and 
appeared to be dying. His wife, on hearing the news, 
immediately saddled a horse in spite of the entreaties 
of the terrified natives, who feared equally to accom- 
pany her or to be left behind unprotected. After a 
terrible night ride she reached her husband and nursed 
him back to health. 



224 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

Barely had they returned home when the Govern- 
ment of the Orange Free State resolved to expel all 
missionaries from Basutoland. No reason was ever 
given for this act of oppression nor was any notice taken 
of the .appeal of the missionaries for an inquiry. A 
commando appeared one day at Leribe to execute the 
order. 

"Leave nothing behind/' said the commandant, "for 
you will never come back here. ,, 

After a painful journey through the Drakensbergs 
the exiled missionaries reached Natal, where they lived 
for the next two years, and laboured among the Zulus. 
They also paid a visit to Dr. Moffat at Kuruman. 
Writing of this visit to his mother in France, M. Coil- 
lard says, "Do you remember the long evenings when 
I used to read to you Mr. Moffat's book about Africa 
while you stripped the hemp ? Did you ever think then 
that I should come to Africa and that I should see Mr. 
Moffat and his station, Kuruman? The Lord's ways 
are wonderful." 

IV: Revival 

In 1869 Britain established a protectorate over 
Basutoland and the missionaries were enabled to return 
to their work. The Coillards found Leribe practically 
in ruins, but to their great joy the spiritual side of the 
work had suffered no loss. The troubles rising out 
of the war had led to a revival of religion among the 
Basutos. The paramount chief, Moshesh, who was 
dying, declared himself a Christian. Nathanael, his 
nephew, one of his trustiest counsellors and the bravest 



COILLARD OF THE ZAMBESI 225 

of his chiefs, who had long been a Christian at heart 
and a true friend of the Coillards, was baptised about 
this time. In Europe the Franco-Prussian war was 
raging and Nathanael heard something of the anxieties 
and privations of M. Coillard's mother. One day he 
brought an ox as a present for her, and, with it, a 
touching letter in which he said, 

"My Mother, I am Nathanael Makotoko, I salute 
you in the love of the Lord. Since the war has broken 
out in France my heart is full of sorrow. I know what 
war is, what sufferings it brings. I thought of you. 
. . . You think you have only one son in Leribe 
because you sent only one. No, my Mother, you have 
two, the second is myself, Nathanael. It is you who 
have given me life in the Lord, for it is you who 
gave birth to the servant of God, my beloved pastor, 
who came to draw me out of darkness. You have 
many children in Leribe and you will have many more 
yet." Surely these words must have brought to the 
aged mother's heart some foretaste of that ' 'hundred- 
fold" which the Lord promised to those who have 
given up their dearest for His sake. 

The power of the Gospel was felt even by the igno- 
rant and the aged. A poor old Matabele woman, a 
derelict from her tribe, was at first dull and listless. 
She could not pray, she said, for she did not know the 
Basuto language. When she was told that she could 
pray just as well in her own tongue she exclaimed in 
amazement, "Do you really mean that God understands 
my language?" When she was assured of this it 
opened all the floodgates of her pent-up heart. 

"Perhaps you think I am old," she said. "No, I 



226 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

have grown a young girl since I began to serve Christ." 
She spoke of her past life of heathenism and beer- 
drinking, but she added, "I did not know any better. 
I had not yet heard that I had a Father." 

The most notable fruit of this revival was the birth 
of a missionary spirit among the Basuto Christians, 
and it was determined to break new ground in the 
Banyai country, immediately to the north of the Trans- 
vaal. A little band of Basuto evangelists was sent 
out but they were forced to return after having been 
imprisoned for some time in Pretoria. The Mission 
Council then resolved to ask M. Coillard to lead the 
expedition in person. The proposal came upon the 
Coillards like a thunderbolt, for they had all their 
preparations made for a well earned furlough in 
Europe, the first after twenty years of service. Noth- 
ing is more characteristic of them than the spirit in 
which they met this crisis. 

V : "With Such an Escort We Can Go Anywhere" 

M. Coillard wrote, "The thought of leading a wan- 
dering life full of perils and adventures, and leaving 
our station for so long, appalled us. However, we 
fixed a day for our final decision and redoubled the 
ardour of our prayers. The evening of this very 

day, our friend C , who was not at all in sympathy 

with the appeal they had addressed to us, and who had 
not the least idea that the moment had come for us 
to decide, read the 91st Psalm to us. Never had it 
seemed so beautiful. When, after marking the mag- 
nificent promises, which came so aptly one by one, our 



COILLARD OF THE ZAMBESI 227 

brother came to verse eleven, 'He shall give His angels 
charge over thee/ the climax was reached. My wife 
and I looked at each other and understood. The mo- 
ment we were alone, 'Well ?' I said to her. 

" 'With such an escort we can go anywhere,' she 
replied. 

"We knelt down, our resolution was taken, peace 
and joy returned to our hearts.' ' 

Be it remembered, these were not youthful enthusi- 
asts ready to dare anything in blind inexperience, they 
were veterans, spent with years of service, who were 
called to greater effort and costlier sacrifice. It was 
an act of supreme devotion to pluck up their home life 
by the roots and face, at their age, the hardships of 
pioneering. 

In April 16, 1877, the expedition had an enthusi- 
astic send-off. The young Basuto Church cherished 
the rosiest dreams of its success, but the leaders were 
under no delusion as to the task before them. As the 
wagon began to move Mme. Coillard turned to her 
husband and said, "We have weighed anchor, God 
knows where we shall land. But he knoweth my wan- 
derings, my tears are in His book." As the event 
proved, almost ten years were to elapse ere, in God's 
providence, they had again a settled home. They had 
embarked on a vaster and not less perilous Odyssey 
than Homer's. 

The story of the expedition forms an almost incred- 
ible tale of adventure and of toil. After getting clear 
of the Transvaal they had to cut a virgin path north- 
wards towards Mashonaland. Their reception at the 
hands of the Banyai was very different from what they 



228 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

had been led to expect. The chiefs were hostile and the 
people pillaged their goods. Once, when the lumber- 
ing wagon stuck fast in a ravine, it seemed as if the 
whole party would be massacred on the spot. Round 
them surged a mob of savages, brandishing spears, 
howling threats, snatching at the goods on the wagon. 
Mme. Coillard deliberately sat down under a tree and 
began to sew, with an excited warrior whirling his axe 
over her head. Her husband meantime was imploring 
and restraining the Basutos who were for seizing their 
rifles, "to die like men." He knew that the first shot 
fired would be the signal of the end. At last the ter- 
rified oxen lurched forward and the mission party 
were snatched, as if by the very hand of God, from 
the jaws of death. Years after, when in a similar 
position of peril on the upper Zambesi, M. Coillard 
told the story to his trembling followers, and con- 
cluded, "Well, my friends, mark my words. It will 
be just the same here. Not a hair of our heads will 
fall to the ground." And so it proved in the issue. 

It was at this time that Mme. Coillard was smitten 
with sunstroke, from the effects of which she never 
entirely recovered. When she regained consciousness 
she reproached herself for "the sting of my heart as 
I opened my eyes once more on the light of this world." 
She added, "I did not realise till then how very unut- 
terably weary I had become." A band of Matabele 
warriors now appeared on the scene, before whom the 
Banyai grovelled in abject terror. Coillard then learned 
that Lobengula held the Banyai tribes in subjection 
and resented the mission entering his territory by a 
back door. The whole party were made prisoners and 



COILLARD OF THE ZAMBESI 229 

hurried westward to Bulawayo, which they hardly 
dared to hope they would leave alive. Fortunately their 
knowledge of Zulu enabled them to converse freely 
with Lobengula, and even to convince that bloodthirsty 
tyrant of the honesty of their intentions. After three 
anxious months of captivity they were sent out of 
Matabeleland by the southwest, and came into Khama's 
country where they were welcomed by that Christian 
chief and his people. The question of the future of 
the expedition now became pressing. It seemed as if 
no course was open but to return south to Basutoland, 
y:;t, on the other hand, M. Coillard felt that the ringer 
of God pointed unmistakably to the far north. The cir- 
cumstances were indeed remarkable. Many years be- 
fore, a branch of the Basuto people had fought their 
way north, crossed the Zambesi, and established their 
sway over a wide region in its upper basin. They 
became known to the world as the Makololo, whom Liv- 
ingstone found the dominant power on the upper Zam- 
besi. Since his day their vassals, the Barotsi, had risen 
in revolt and exterminated them, but their name was 
still held in respect, and their language, Sesuto, was 
spoken throughout the country. Here surely was 
the predestined field for the missionary labours of the 
Basuto Church, a field where no new language had to 
be learned, no new translations to be made. 

The difficulties in the way, however, were most for- 
midable. The route to the Zambesi lay across the great 
Kalahari desert. A previous attempt to found a mis- 
sion among the Makololo had failed disastrously. In 
response to Livingstone's appeal, Helmore and Price 
of the L.M.S. had led an expedition to the north, but 



230 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

almost all perished, possibly by poison, and the mission 
had to be abandoned. Since the revolt of the Barotsi 
the whole region of the upper Zambesi was reported to 
be the scene of constant warfare and bloodshed. Yet 
all this only made brighter, by contrast, the vision of 
faith. M. Coillard wrote in his journal, "How splen- 
did will be the day, which I see already dawning, when 
all the tribes of Central Africa will know Jesus and 
sing His praises. It will be a sight for angels. The 
sacrifice of a life is a small thing to contribute to hasten 
that glorious day." 

A start was made in June, 1878, and after a trek 
of two months Leshoma was reached, a point on the 
Zambesi some miles above the Victoria Falls. Leav- 
ing his wife at Leshoma, Coillard crossed and travelled 
up the river to Shesheke, the home of some powerful 
chiefs of the Barotsi. He opened communication with 
Lewanika, the King of the Barotsi, and requested per- 
mission to settle in his country. Lewanika, however, 
was engaged in a desperate struggle to maintain his 
throne and could give no definite answer. 

Meantime the mission party suffered terribly from 
fever. Coillard himself lay between life and death. 
Khosana, one of the Basuto evangelists, died, and 
Eleazar, another of them, fell ill. At last a message 
arrived from Lewanika granting the desired permis- 
sion. "God be praised," exclaimed Eleazar. "The 
door is open." Then, as he felt himself sinking, he 
added, "My grave will be the fingerpost of the mission." 

"Do you regret having come?" asked M. Coillard 
sorrowfully. 

"Oh, no," he replied, "I do not belong to myself. 



COILLARD OF THE ZAMBESI 231 

It is to the Lord I belong. It is His business, not 
mine." 

So died "a sure counsellor and a precious friend," as 
M. Coillard, not without good reason, calls him. 

It now became necessary to return to Basutoland, to 
organise and equip the Barotsi mission. The joy of 
the home coming to Leribe was deeply shadowed by 
sorrow. In the long two years' trek three of the four 
Basuto evangelists had died. M. Coillard scarcely 
knew how to meet their friends, but the aged father 
of one of them grasped his hand and said, "My father, 
do not grieve. I offered the Lord the best thing I had, 
and He has accepted my sacrifice." 

In December, 1879, tne Coillards left for their long 
delayed furlough in Europe. It proved one of their 
most arduous campaigns. The funds of the Paris 
Missionary Society were so depleted that the Com- 
mittee could not face the opening of a new field. Thus 
it fell entirely on M. Coillard to raise every penny of 
the funds required for the Barotsi mission. The work 
was hard and, to his sensitive nature, distasteful, yet 
he carried it through with complete success, winning 
the confidence of the Churches in France, England, and 
Scotland by his invincible faith and the charm of his 
personality. 

Back in Basutoland in 1882 he encountered difficul- 
ties of another sort. War had broken out again. Le- 
ribe Mission Station had been plundered and the vil- 
lage burnt. Indeed in the whole district, with a popu- 
lation of 35,000, not a village was left standing. Even 
after peace was restored it seemed hopeless to stir up 
the scattered and impoverished Church to a fresh inter- 



232 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

est in Barotsiland. "How can people go to the Zam- 
besi," it was asked, "when there is so much to do in 
Basutoland?" Only the driving power of an uncon- 
querable faith carried the mission forward. "A mis- 
sionary enterprise," wrote M. Coillard at this time, 
"is not like a balloon, launched into the air amid admir- 
ing crowds and then left to take its chance. 

"But tasks in hours of insight willed 
Can be through days of gloom fulfilled." 

VI : Among the Barotsi 

At last preparations were completed and in January, 
1884, the expedition left Leribe for the Zambesi. 
Accompanying the Coillards were their niece, Elise 
Coillard; M. Jeanmairet, a young Swiss missionary; 
two artisans, and four Basuto evangelists with their 
families. Passing northj through Khama's country 
they found a message of welcome from Lewanika, but 
by the time they reached the Zambesi Lewanika was 
dethroned and civil war raging. A weary year of 
uncertainty followed. M. Coillard speaks of "an utter 
lassitude, both moral and physical. It seemed to us 
sometimes that the springs had been overstrained, 
and the very sources of life dried up." The passage 
of the Zambesi was at length safely accomplished and 
the missionary band advanced to Shesheke, only to 
find themselves in the midst of bloodshed and terror. 
The very first night after they crossed the river some 
fugitive women who clung to Mme. Coillard for refuge 
were dragged off and butchered. 

Slavery, witchcraft and all the oppressive evils of 



COLLLARD OF THE ZAMBESI 233 

African heathenism prevailed in Barotsiland. Thiev- 
ing seemed to be a universal vice. Recounting some 
of his losses, M. Coillard half humorously offers them 
as a proof that "we have made no mistake in bringing 
the Gospel to the Zambesi.'' This faith upheld him 
through everything. He had in fullest measure the 
mystic insight which discerns the hand of God in all 
events, even the most untoward. It was this which 
made him write, after seeing his wagon overturned at 
a ford and all his stores and books sunk in the water, 
"The one thing that shone out amid the tumult of my 
thoughts was a lively sense of God's goodness." Yet 
there were hours of gloom and of reaction. Thus he 
writes again : "Night fell. But a darkness deeper than 
that of night oppressed my spirit. I was seized with 
an awful and overpowering sense of helplessness, dis- 
tress and mental anguish." 

The station at Shesheke was barely established when 
M. Coillard left it in charge of M. Jeanmairet, who 
had now married Elise Coillard, and himself pushed 
on, far up the river to Sefule, near the King's capital 
of Lealuyi. It was one of the most toilsome of all 
his journeys, for it meant dragging the wagon 
through a wooded and waterlogged country infested 
with tsetse fly. Mme. Coillard joined him in January, 
1887, and once again, after ten years of a wandering 
life, they were settled in what might be called a home. 
Here they set to work, with failing strength but with 
unflagging zeal and devotion, to reclaim the wilderness 
of heathenism around them. The physical conditions 
were new and more arduous than in Basutoland. The 
country was a vast and steaming flat, inundated for 



234. THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

some months every year and always feverstricken, a 
country where travel was difficult and where strenuous 
exertion was impossible. 

VII : African Royalty 

Lewanika had by this time regained his throne and 
mercilessly slaughtered his enemies. On the whole 
he was favourable to the mission, though with variable 
moods and fits of suspicion. He sent some of his 
children to school, notably his son Litia, who now 
reigns as the first Christian King of Barotsiland. The 
character of Lewanika, his slow emergence out of 
savagery and his wavering approaches to the Chris- 
tian faith, make an interesting study. Being told that 
God hates the shedding of blood, he one day sends a 
message that he will shed no more blood, and there- 
fore, having captured some children of his enemies, he 
has only poisoned them. Later he sends a herald to 
the school to warn the pupils that all who play truant 
or do not learn their lessons will be throttled. Grad- 
ually he came to be on terms of intimacy with the Coil- 
lards whom he both loved and trusted. More and 
more he seemed to feel a sense of isolation from his 
own people and their ways. Sitting in the little mis- 
sion house he said, 'This is my home. I have twenty- 
one wives but no home!" Perhaps, had he felt him- 
self strong enough to resist his chiefs, he might have 
made profession of the Christian faith. Who can tell? 

The royal pupils in the school were at first a source 
of much annoyance. Their attendants procured food 
for them by the simple process of plundering the neigh- 



COILLARD OF THE ZAMBESI 235 

bouring villages, so that the people began to desert the 
locality. The Princess Mpololoa required three slaves 
to attend her, one to hold her book, one behind to lean 
against, and one in front to act as a writing desk ! The 
dignity of these young savages was jealously guarded. 
A native having accidentally brushed against a little 
daughter of Lewanika was slain on the spot by the 
child's attendants. Such were the awful depths in 
which the first foundations of the Kingdom of God 
had to be laid. 

No picture of court life in Barotsiland would be 
complete without mention of Lewanika's sister, Mok- 
wae, who reigned as Queen in her own right. She was 
a stout, comical looking figure, but a most formidable 
personage. Her ninth husband followed everywhere 
at her heels submissively, with many a trembling 
thought, doubtless, of his unfortunate predecessors, 
none of whom had died a natural death. Mokwae had 
been known, in moments of passion, to seize a sword 
and sweep a man's head off at one blow. Yet with 
the eternal feminine in her savage breast. "What 
lovely eyes you have got," was her first greeting to 
M. Coillard. To his wife she expatiated on the glories 
of the wardrobe she possessed before the war, "a grey 
hat with green and red, and a long dress. All the 
King's wives had just the same, and really we looked 
just like men." These hats and dresses had perished, 
with much else, in the war, and Mme. Coillard was 
welcomed as a dressmaker and milliner! 

In 1890 there occurred a momentous event in the 
history of Barotsiland. An envoy from the British 
South Africa Company arrived to negotiate a treaty 



236 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

with Lewanika. The King himself was favourable to 
British suzereignty, influenced doubtless by the expe- 
rience of Khama, who sent a message, "I have tasted 
of a delicious dish and I share it with you." The 
matter was discussed in full council of the chiefs, and 
M. Coillard, while carefully disclaiming all personal 
interest, was able to give such explanations as led at 
length to the signing of the treaty. But for his pres- 
ence the result would have been very different. Thus 
in great measure through his work and the influence 
of his character a kingdom as large as France was 
peacefully added to the Empire. To the Barotsi them- 
selves it was an immense benefit that by his work of 
Christian education they were in some degree prepared 
to meet the incoming tide of the white man's civilisation. 

VIII : "That Delicious Radn" 

In 1 89 1 Mme. Coillard died. The last years of her 
life had been a continual struggle against fever and 
increasing weakness. All her strength, to the last 
ounce, she gave to the work, devoting herself prin- 
cipally to the women and children. It was October 
and the rains had not yet come. The earth was red- 
hot and the air was stifling. The night before she 
died the rain broke. 

"Place me at the window/' she said, "to let me hear 
that delicious rain." 

It was a touch of God's mercy at the last. And 
she had the greater privilege, too, of hearing the first 
showers of spiritual blessing. Often she had prayed, 
"Oh, that Thou wouldest rend the heavens and come 



COILLARD OF THE ZAMBESI 237 

down," but the spiritual firmament was as brass and 
the earth iron. The last year had been the hardest. 
"Never, during our thirty years together," wrote M. 
Coillard, "had we passed through so many sufferings 
and distresses. She often said, 'What a year! I 
wonder how it will all end.' Everything seemed against 
us, everything." 

The Sunday before her death Mme. Coillard was 
able to attend a service at Lealuyi. Litia had just 
returned from a visit to Khama's country and he rose 
and declared himself a Christian. "My father," he 
said, beaming with joy, "I am no longer the Litia of 
former days. I am converted. I have found Jesus." 
While he spoke, Mokamba, a young man of the royal 
family, broke down and sobbed aloud. Mme. Coillard 
was deeply touched and thrilled with joy. 

"A Morotsi weeping," she exclaimed, "and weeping 
for his sins. I thought a Morotsi had no tears to shed. 
It is a sight I would have travelled three hundred miles 
to see." 

On Monday she said, "Take me back to Sefula. It 
is there I would die." Her last words to her husband 
were, "Do be in earnest, do." Well might he say of 
her that her life was an alabaster box of ointment, 
exceeding precious, which she broke and poured out 
upon the Saviour's feet. 

IX: The Wedge of the Gospel 

After the death of his wife M. Coillard felt himself 
a lonely and homeless man, yet twelve toilsome years 
were before him ere he reached his rest. In 1892 he 



238 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

moved the mission station to Leafuyi, and his influence 
over the King and his people steadily increased. "In 
spite of all our disasters," he wrote, "I have the pro- 
found conviction that we have already forced the wedge 
of the Gospel into the social system of this nation. It 
is for others to drive it home with redoubled blows, and 
this mighty paganism, solid and formidable as it 
appears, will break up, as it has done in all times and 
in all countries." The losses of the mission had indeed 
been grievous, and many graves had been dug beside 
the Zambesi, but undoubtedly the work was telling. 
The King appointed one of the converts to be the 
Gambella, or Prime Minister, expressly to lead his 
people along the path of reform. Slowly but surely 
the wedge was pushing home. 

In 1895 M. Coillard undertook a long journey up 
the river to break ground among the new and unknown 
tribes. He travelled in canoes provided by Lewanika, 
and was accompanied by the Gambella and other con- 
verts. Something was done to allay the suspicion of 
hostile tribes and the homeward voyage down the river 
was gladdened by the work of grace among the boat- 
men. Returning to Lealuyi seriously ill M. Coillard 
was compelled to leave at once for South Africa, where 
a skilful operation was the means of restoring him to 
a measure of health. 

From the Cape he came home on his second and 
last furlough. Once again, through two years of inces- 
sant travel, he charmed Europe and pressed upon the 
Protestant Churches the crying need of Central Africa. 
It was while he was home on this visit that he was 
found to have given anonymously all the money he 



COILLARD OF THE ZAMBESI 239 

possessed to the Zambesi Mission. His friends felt 
that he might well retire, but his own heart told him 
that work still waited him, and a grave, beside the 
Zambesi. "My heart is still young/' he wrote, "but 
the old tent is wearing out. I should like to have wings, 
to travel about the country and publish the Good 
News." 

Having raised funds and enlisted a band of volun- 
teers he returned to Africa. There was time for a 
brief visit to his old home in Basutoland. The sadness 
of farewell was mixed with the joy of witnessing the 
amazing progress of the Basuto Church. He naturally 
saw in this "the seal of God placed upon the call we 
felt we had received to the Zambesi." In many respects 
a new day was dawning for Central Africa. The mis- 
sion party travelled to Bulawayo by the Cape to Cairo 
Railway, where M. Coillard lunched at Government 
House on the very spot where Lobengula had held him 
a captive at his kraal. 

Arrived at his field of labour he was at once plunged 
into a sea of troubles which made his closing years 
among the most trying and painful of his life. There 
were bad seasons and political complications in the 
country. In the mission, deaths of beloved friends 
and valued workers threatened for a time to bring the 
whole work to a standstill. In three years, out of 
twenty-four young recruits, eight had died and eleven 
had been invalided home. Only five remained in the 
field. But perhaps the bitterest trial of all was the 
disloyalty and opposition of some of his Basuto helpers 
who had gone over to the Ethiopian movement and 
resented, with childish petulance, all control. Nothing 



240 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

could have been more perfectly Christlike than the 
tender, fatherly spirit in which M. Coillard bore 
with them, and strove to win them back to reason and 
charity. It was due to this that the trouble was less 
acute and gave far less trouble than in most other 
African missions. Yet in secret his heart bled, and 
he marked his Bible at the pathetic text, "I have 
laboured in vain and spent my strength for nought and 
in vain." 

An episode of a very different kind created about 
this time a universal interest in Barotsiland. It was 
no less an event than the visit of King Lewanika to 
England in 1902, to attend the coronation of King 
Edward. 

"Will you not feel embarrassed at your first inter- 
view?" asked M. Coillard. 

"Oh, no," replied Lewanika coolly, "when we Kings 
get together we always find plenty to talk about." 

This visit made a profound impression on Lewanika 
and his people. The Gambella who accompanied him 
summed up his impressions of England in the striking 
words. "The great ones honoured us, the believers 
showed us affection, but the people of the world de- 
spised us because our skins were black." 

King Lewanika himself, on the Sunday after his 
return, came to the mission service and made a remark- 
able speech to the people, in which he said: "I have 
two words; the first is, Praise God and bless Him. 
In spite of all your fears I have come back to you full 
of life and health. ... It is God alone whom we 
must praise. Let us talk no more about our ancestors, 
they are no Gods. My second word is this, The 



COILLARD OF THE ZAMBESI 241 

Gospel is everything. I have seen many things, and 
many wonderful things, but I have also seen one 
thing that I cannot keep silent about. It is that every- 
where it is the Word of God that guides kings and 
their councils, which makes people intelligent through 
their schools, and gives them security and happiness. 
The missionaries told me all this but now I have seen 
it. Barotsi, let us come out of our darkness. Come 
and hear the teachings of the missionaries, send your 
children to school, that we too may become a nation." 
Unfortunately the King did not follow up these 
noble words by any declaration of his own faith. On 
the contrary, shortly after, he went, from motives 
of public policy, and paid a ceremonial visit to the 
shrines of his ancestors. Nevertheless the change was 
almost incredible from the savage warrior of twenty 
years before to the far-travelled and experienced ruler 
who could utter these enlightened sentiments. The 
change in his country was no less profound, "peace 
and security instead of anarchy and bloodshed, slave- 
raiding and slave-trading abolished, infanticide, tor- 
ture, trial by ordeal and by witchcraft abolished, and 
drunkenness at that time never seen; also, as an indi- 
rect result, a great territory opened to civilised govern- 
ment without the firing of a single shot." 

X : Rest 

M. Coillard died on May 27, 1904. He had once 
written to a friend, "My great, great desire is not to 
live a day longer than I can work," and in the end this 
wish was fulfilled. He was buried beside his wife 



242 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

under their favourite tree at Sefula, where they had 
often sat together and which they had marked out 
for their last resting place. Over the grave stands 
a marble cross with the words, "To live is Christ," — a 
literally true description of those two heroic lives, 
made perfectly one by their earthly love and, still more, 
by their heavenly devotion. May we not add with 
equal truth, when we think of their manifold toils 
and wanderings, "to die, gain." 



CHAPTER X 

MARY SLESSOR OF CALABAR 

I : An Extraordinary Factory Lassie 

Mary Slessor was a wayward and original genius, 
consecrated to the service of Christ. In Old Testa- 
ment history cases occur where the Spirit of God 
comes mightily upon a man, sweeping him beyond him- 
self, so that natural timidity and weakness are over- 
come, weariness is forgotten, and in a holy frenzy some 
great work of God is wrought. Some such influence is 
needed to explain the extraordinary career of Mary 
Slessor. A Scots lassie of strong sense and shrewd- 
ness, timid and shy yet full of fun, with a vast store 
of nervous energy liable to discharge itself fitfully in 
bursts of jollity and daftness, she was captured and 
possessed by the Divine Spirit, and irresistibly impelled 
to do the strange work she did. In speaking of her 
it is difficult to avoid the language of extravagance. 
She is entitled to a place in the front rank of the 
heroines of history, and if goodness be counted an 
essential element of true greatness, if eminence be 
reckoned by love and self-sacrifice, by years of endur- 
ance and suffering, by a life of sustained heroism and 
purest devotion, it will be found difficult, if not impos- 
sible, to name her equal. 

243 



244 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

Mary Slessor was born December 2, 1848, in the 
city of Aberdeen, and was the second of a family of 
seven children. From her earliest years the home was 
made miserable by the intemperance of her father, and 
was only saved from total wreck by the toil and patient 
goodness of her mother. When Mary was eight years 
old the family removed to Dundee, in the hope that 
away from his old companions the father might make 
a new start. Unhappily there was no improvement, 
and Mrs. Slessor had to go. out to work in the factory 
to earn a scanty livelihood for her children. Mary 
was left in charge of the house, but at the age of 
eleven she also began work in the factory as a half- 
timer. In such a home the children, delicate and ill- 
fed, could not hope to thrive and ere long three of 
them died. The father's habits grew worse, and Sat- 
urday night was a night of terror, often spent by Mary 
in wandering miserably in the streets. At length he 
died and left the home saddened yet relieved of the 
strain of his presence. 

Even in the darkest years, however, there was a 
sunnier side. The tenderest ties of affection bound 
the mother and her children together, and they shared 
the same warm Christian faith. Sunday was the hap- 
piest day of the week and few of their church friends 
suspected the secret tragedy of the home, so jealously 
was it guarded. Their interest in missions seems always 
to have been strong. Mary's favourite game was to 
teach an imaginary school of black children. Her elder 
brother Robert used to announce that he meant to be 
a missionary when he became a man, and when the boy 
died the thought took serious hold of his sister that 



MARY SLESSOR OF CALABAR 245 

she might one day go in his place to the foreign field. 

Years were to elapse before that ambition was ful- 
filled. Like many other distinguished missionaries 
Mary Slessor served a full term of apprenticeship in 
mission work at home. She had always been a dili- 
gent scholar in Sunday School and Bible Class, and an 
eager reader of the best books she could lay hands on. 
It was no ordinary factory lassie who studied Milton's 
Paradise Lost and sat up half the night over Sartor 
Resartus. Wishart Church, to which Mary belonged, 
started a mission in one of the worst slums of Dundee 
and she volunteered her services as a worker. She was 
small and fragile but full of pluck, ready to do and 
dare anything for Christ's sake. The mission rooms 
were in sad disorder. 

"We shall need a charwoman to give the place a 
thorough cleaning," said the superintendent. 

"Nonsense," said Mary, "we will clean it ourselves." 

"You ladies clean such a dirty hall!" 

"Ladies !" laughed Mary. "We are no ladies ; we are 
just ordinary working folk." 

And next night she and another teacher were hard 
at it with pails and scrubbing brushes. 

At first the mission workers had to encounter a 
•certain amount of opposition and rough usage, especially 
when they attempted to hold open air meetings. One 
night Mary found herself suddenly surrounded by a 
band of rough lads who threatened to "do for her" 
unless she promised to desist. 

"I won't," said Mary. "You can do what you like." 

"All right, here goes," shouted the leader, and he 
produced a lump of lead attached to a cord and began 



246 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

to swing it threateningly round her head. She stood 
without winking while the lead swished past her brow. 
After a few tense moments the lad suddenly threw it 
away, exclaiming with honest admiration, "We can't 
force her, boys, she's game." 

Never was a word more fitly spoken. Mary Slessor 
was what would now be called a good sport. She 
had more than a dash of that daredevil spirit which 
leaps up in the moment of peril, not fiercely but good 
humouredly. First and last and always she was 
"game." The lads became her devoted followers, and 
years after the leader sent her the photograph of him- 
self with his wife and children in grateful remembrance 
of the turning point of his life. 

Mary's methods with her class of boys were quite 
unconventional. On Saturday afternoon she would 
join them in long walks into the country and was fore- 
most in any fun that was agoing. Sometimes an impish 
spirit of mischief seemed to take possession of her. 
Once when walking with a girl friend she knocked at 
some cottage doors and ran away. "Oh, Mary, I am 
shocked at you," said her friend. To which remon- 
strance Mary gaily replied: 

"A little nonsense now and then 
Is relished by the wisest men." 

All the week she was hard at work in the factory. 
For years she had been the mainstay of the home, and 
this continued till she seemed to have settled down for 
life to the toilsome lot of a factory worker. It was 
not till her twenty-eighth year that the horizon widened 
and the romance of her African career began. 



MARY SLESSOR OF CALABAR 247 

In 1874 the Christian world was profoundly moved 
by the news of Livingstone's death. It marked an 
epoch in modern missionary history. To Mary Slessor 
it brought an intense revival of her missionary dreams, 
and she reviewed the possibilities afresh. She felt the 
time had come when she could be spared from home. 
Besides, she hoped to be able to send home part of her 
salary. Before volunteering for service she asked her 
mother's consent. "My lassie," said her mother, "I'll 
willingly let you go. You'll make a fine missionary, and 
I'm sure God will be with you." Calabar was the 
mission field on which her heart was set, but in making 
her offer of service she expressed her willingness to go 
anywhere. To her great joy she was accepted for 
work in Calabar, and after some months of training 
in Edinburgh she sailed for the west coast of Africa 
on the 5th of August, 1876. 

II : In Dark Calabar 

Calabar, or Old Calabar as it was wont to be called, 
was a household word in the United Presbyterian 
Church. A certain member of that communion, dimly 
conscious of having heard the name from childhood, 
asked a collector incredulously, "Is the old beggar 
living yet?" Few were so ignorant of what the name 
signified, for throughout the Church there was a proud 
interest in Old Calabar as the Church's most difficult 
and most romantic mission field. 

In the inmost recesses of the Gulf of Guinea, a 
hundred miles east of the Niger, the Cross River rolls 
its waters to the sea. The surrounding country is now 



248 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

included in the British colony of Southern Nigeria. It 
is the ancestral home of the Negro proper, and in the 
days when the slave traders swept the west coast of 
Africa, multitudes were torn away from these regions 
and shipped off to the plantations in the West Indies. 
It was among the children of these plantation slaves 
that the idea of the Calabar Mission first arose. The 
United Presbyterian Church had had a mission in 
Jamaica since 1824, and when the slaves were emanci- 
pated many of them turned their thoughts back to the 
old home of their people, and longed to carry thither 
the story of the Cross. In this desire their missionaries 
warmly sympathised, and one of them, Mr. Hope Wad- 
dell, went to Scotland to arouse the interest of the 
home Church. Having secured the necessary help, he 
sailed for Calabar in 1845, m his little brigantine, the 
Warree. After some months spent there, he took the 
Warree over to Jamaica, and brought thence an addi- 
tional band of helpers. 

The Cross River cannot compare in volume with 
those giants of Africa, the Nile, the Niger, the Congo 
or the Zambesi, yet its estuary gives a surprising im- 
pression of magnitude. For the first thirty miles it 
maintains a breadth of ten miles. Above that point, 
though the breadth is not diminished, the channel is 
filled with a labyrinth of islands. Beyond these islands 
the Calabar River comes in from the east, finding its 
way by various channels to the main stream. Near its 
mouth, on opposite banks and with an island between 
them, lie Duke Town and Creek Town. Here the 
mission was commenced. When the Warree first cast 
anchor, a few trading ships lay in the river for barter 



MARY SLESSOR OF CALABAR 249 

with the natives. No white trader was allowed to 
settle on shore, and few had any desire to do so, for 
the country was regarded as a white man's grave. 
"Kings" were plentiful in Calabar. Every town of 
any size had its king, some of whom were prosperous 
traders and men of influence, especially King Eyo 
Honesty of Creek Town. But for the most part they 
were raw savages who sustained their kingship with 
ridiculous solemnity, robed in a strip of yellow cotton 
and crowned with a battered pot-hat. The wealthier 
chiefs and traders had their houses packed full of 
sofas and mirrors and every variety of English furni- 
ture, which they knew not how to use. 

This slight contact with civilisation had done noth- 
ing to banish the superstitions or mitigate the bar- 
barous customs of heathenism. Belief in evil spirits 
was universal, witchcraft and the poison ordeal were 
practised everywhere. The towns on the river bank 
offered human sacrifices to the spirit of the river for 
the success of the fishing. When twin children were 
born they were, as quickly as possible, buried alive, 
and the unhappy mother killed or driven into the bush. 
At the death of a chief or any man of importance 
there was a cruel slaughter among his people. A huge 
cavern was dug for a grave, and into it the body of 
the chief was placed, resting on the bodies of four 
of his wives, bound hand and foot but living. Slaves 
were then brought to the grave-side, their heads struck 
off, and their bodies tumbled in till the grave was full, 
when all was covered over with earth and trampled 
down. To such hideous customs add the horrors of 
tribal wars, of slavery and slave-raiding, and there 



250 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

rises the picture of a land covered with gross darkness 
and fuM of the habitations of cruelty. 



Ill : "Blessed with an Efik Mouth" 

When Mary Slessor arrived in Calabar the Mission 
had been in existence for thirty years and considerable 
progress had been made in the district immediately 
around Duke Town and Creek Town as well as a few 
miles up the river, but the interior of the country had 
yet to be penetrated. Back in the depths of the primeval 
forest savage tribes, some of them cannibals, raided 
and fought and wallowed in the abysmal night of 
heathenism. Nowhere was the darkness of Africa 
more dense than in the hinterland of the West Coast. 

At first Mary was charmed with the novelty and 
beauty of her surroundings. After the smoke of Dun- 
dee and the confinement of the factory she revelled 
in the glory of the sunshine and the luxuriance of the 
tropics. The deadly climate had not yet laid its hand 
on her, and she vented her wild spirits in climbing the 
biggest trees in the neighbourhood. She claimed in 
after years that she had climbed every respectable tree 
between Duke Town and Old Town. Her home was 
with "Mammy" and "Daddy" Anderson in their house 
on Mission Hill above Duke Town, a one time haunted 
spot thick strewn with the decaying bodies of the 
unburied dead, but now the headquarters of the Mis- 
sion. Mammy Anderson was a bit of a disciplinarian, 
and evidently found her volatile young friend "a hand- 
ful," as the Scots say. She threatened that those who 
did not come for meals at regular hours must go with- 



MARY SLESSOR OF CALABAR 251 

out. To Mary regularity was next to impossible, but 
she found that, when she transgressed the rule, bananas 
and biscuits were smuggled to her, while her dear old 
Mammy turned a blind eye. 

Meantime, with all her quaint ways and oddities, 
Mary had plunged into the work heart and soul. She 
rapidly acquired the language, and seemed to steep 
herself in the native mind. The people began to say 
that she was "blessed with an Efik mouth." She visited 
in their homes and addressed little audiences wherever 
they could be found. Gradually the shuddering depths 
of heathenism were unveiled before her eyes, and 
stirred her soul with infinite yearning and pity. She 
did not escape her share of west coast fever, and by 
the end of a three years' strenuous apprenticeship she 
was thoroughly run down and homesick. "I want my 
home and my mother, " she confessed. 

A short furlough in Scotland restored her physical 
vigour and she returned to Calabar in 1880 with fresh 
ardour. To her delight she was given charge of the 
work in Old Town and was left free to follow her 
own methods. It was a strange situation for a Scots 
lassie to be left solitary in a West African town where 
the vilest heathenism had combined with gin and the 
slave trade to make a hell upon earth. Yet this isola- 
tion was entirely to her mind, for more reasons than 
one. She was sending home a large part of her meagre 
salary to her mother, and to enable her to do this she 
lived almost entirely on native food. But chiefly she 
welcomed the opportunity of living among the people 
till she became like one of themselves. This was 
the secret of the extraordinary influence she acquired. 



252 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

She loved the Africans and never wearied of them, 
however grieved and sickened in soul she might be by 
their heathenish ways. Perhaps the iniquity that lay 
heaviest on her heart was the systematic murder of 
twin children. In the benighted minds of the natives 
the superstition was firmly rooted that, when twins 
were born, the father of one of them must be some 
evil spirit with, whom the mother had formed an 
unnatural union. Both mother and children were 
regarded with the greatest horror. The woman was 
driven out of her village as an accursed being, the 
infants were made away with at once, being either 
buried alive or crushed into an earthen pot and flung 
into the bush. The Mission was always on the outlook 
for these little waifs and many of them were rescued. 
It was useless to restore them to their mother, for she 
also regarded them with aversion and would, if she 
got the chance, destroy them with her own hands. 
The infants of slave mothers who died were also often 
left to perish, and the callousness of the people in 
regard to child life was appalling. 

Mary Slesser's mother-heart yearned over these tiny 
morsels of black humanity. She gathered them in with 
both arms and soon her house was full to overflowing. 
From first to last she saved in this way scores of chil- 
dren, some of whom grew up in her home to love and 
serve her like daughters. Other babies came into 
her hands too enfeebled to live. These, when they 
died, she dressed and buried with reverent care, while 
the natives watched her with stupid wonder, saying, 
"Why this fuss about a dead child? She can get 
hundreds more." 



MARY SLESSOR OF CALABAR 253 

While carrying on her work in Old Town, Mary 
Slessor constantly heard the call of the unknown, and 
felt increasingly the fascination of the dark, untrav- 
ersed hinterland. Hers was the restless spirit of the 
pioneer, ever reaching out eagerly to the regions beyond. 
She had now no family ties in the home land, for her 
mother and sister were both dead, and her heart was 
wholly given to Africa. To bury herself in its darkest 
depths, to labour for its uplifting, to live and die among 
its people, was her sole and consuming ambition. At 
length in 1886 the Mission Council agreed that she 
should go up country and break new ground in Oko- 
yong, a district lying in the angle between the Calabar 
and Cross Rivers. 

IV : Settled Among Savages 

Okoyong was the home of a fierce and powerful 
tribe, supposed to be of Bantu origin, for they were of 
better physique, lighter in colour, and with finer fea- 
tures than the negro tribes around them. Appalling 
stories of their barbarism reached the coast. They 
were a tribe of head-hunters, with no central authority, 
but each village under its own petty chief, all armed 
and suspicious of one another, prone to drunkenness 
and bloody brawls in the intervals between more serious 
fighting. 

It was not easy to secure the consent of these wild 
people to the settlement of a missionary among them. 
Several visits were paid to the district but without 
result. At length in the summer of 1888 Mary Slessor 
went up the river herself and, making her way to a 



254 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

village called Ekenge, she secured the consent of the 
chief, Edem, to the building of a mission house there. 
No doubt one influence leading to this was the strange 
friendship which sprang up at first sight between Mary 
and the chief's sister, Ma Erne. The latter, though 
she never became a Christian, remained a lifelong friend 
of the Mission, and often sent secret warning when 
any plot or savage project was on foot. Mary returned 
to Creek Town to prepare for a permanent settlement 
in Okoyong. 

On the 3rd of August she set out on her great 
adventure. It was a dull grey morning with a thick 
drizzle of rain. A few friends gathered at the river 
bank to see her off. "I will always pray for you," said 
one, "but you are courting death." She stepped into the 
canoe with five native orphans who formed her house- 
hold, — the eldest a boy of eleven, the youngest a baby 
in her arms, — the paddlers pushed off, and in a few 
minutes they had disappeared in the mist. It was 
dark before they reached the landing place for Ekenge, 
and the village itself was four miles back in the forest. 
Taking the baby in her arms and urging forward the 
now terrified and weeping children Mary struck out 
along the forest path, leaving the men to follow with 
the loads. On reaching the village she found it 
deserted on account of a funeral carnival in the next 
village. She got shelter in a hut and waited for the 
loads to arrive. By and by news reached her that the 
men were tired and refused to come on. Mary at 
once rose up, retraced the four miles of forest path, 
routed the men out of the canoe, rallied and scolded 
them, and brought them all on to Ekenge by midnight. 



MARY SLESSOR OF CALABAR 255 

In after years the same resolute spirit, full of dash and 
fun, carried her through a hundred toils and perils 
where any other woman would have sunk down and 
failed. 

She was not long in making herself at home. She 
superintended and helped with her own hands the build- 
ing of a mud-walled house. She went about with bare 
feet and bare head, subsisted on native food, drank 
unfiltered water, slept on the ground, got drenched 
with rain, and in short did everything that would have 
killed any ordinary person. She had a wonderful 
way with the natives. Her perfect mastery of the 
language, her fearlessness and good humour made her 
pleadings irresistible. She would plunge into the thick 
of a drunken brawl and separate the combatants. Even 
when more serious fighting was afoot she often inter- 
vened with success. So extraordinary did her influence 
become that, whenever any trouble arose, the instant 
cry of the women was, "Run, Ma, run." And run 
she did, at any hour of the night or day. Sometimes, 
if the night alarm was urgent, she sped along the 
forest path, clad only in her night dress. "Of course," 
she would explain apologetically, "they were not to 
know but what it was court dress." Strangely enough, 
she continued through it all a naturally timid and 
shrinking woman, trembling in every limb and praying 
in agony as she ran. But her tears were overpowered 
and her sensitive spirit was swept onward by an irre- 
sistible passion of heavenly love. 

She continued with ardour her work of saving twins 
and other outcast children. She had at all times a con- 
siderable family under her care, but no matter how 



256 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

numerous they might be there was ever room in her 
heart and home for more. Sometimes two or three 
tiny hammocks would be slung from the roof around 
her bed so that she could conveniently reach and rock 
the little sleepers through the night. Scenes were wit- 
nessed that would have moved a heart of stone. On 
one occasion, hearing of the birth of twins in a neigh- 
bouring village, Mary ran to the rescue, but ere she had 
gone far she met the unhappy mother staggering along 
the path, with the babies in a basket on her head and 
the whole village hounding her off into the forest with 
execrations. Mary took her home, and as the poor 
creature lay dying she cried out to her husband for for- 
giveness, sobbing in her delirium, "I did not mean to 
insult you.' , 

On another occasion Mary heard some women re- 
marking casually how strange it was that a baby should 
live five or six days in the bush. On inquiry she found 
that the baby of a dead slave mother had been cast 
out about a week before because nobody cared to nurse 
it, and that morning, as the women came in to the 
market, they still heard its feeble cries. Mary flew to 
the spot and found the baby, alive indeed but almost 
eaten up by the flies and insects that swarmed over it. 
Under her care it recovered and proved a singularly 
sweet and pretty little girl. Mary gave the child her 
own name and lived to see her happily married to 
David, an educated native from Lagos, and the proud 
driver of a Government motor car. 

Another great battle had to be fought against heathen 
funeral customs. Only a few months before Mary 
Slessor went to Okoyong the funeral of a petty chief 



MARY SLESSOR OF CALABAR 257 

was celebrated by the burial along with him of four 
free wives, sixteen slaves and twenty boys and girls. 
The death of every person of importance was signalised 
by drunkenness, bloodshed, and the poison ordeal. 
Often Mary Slessor, taking her own life in her hand, 
stood between the living and the dead. One day Mr. 
Ovens, the carpenter from Duke Town who had been 
sent up to repair her house, was working on the roof 
when he heard a wild cry from the forest. Mary was 
off in a moment, and following he found her beside 
the unconscious form of a young man. It was Etim, 
the eldest son of the chief Edem, lying crushed under 
a heavy log. For a fortnight Mary nursed him, but in 
vain. 

"Sorcerers have killed my son, and they must die," 
exclaimed the chief fiercely. "Bring the witch doctor.' ' 

He came and, after some incantations, laid the guilt 
on a neighbouring village near the scene of the acci- 
dent. Soon a dozen men and women were in chains 
awaiting execution. Meantime Mary had not been 
idle. To propitiate the people and maintain a grip 
of the situation she took charge of the funeral arrange- 
ments, and proceeded to carry them through, with 
thoroughgoing barbaric splendour. She arrayed the 
body in the finest clothes she could procure, while the 
head, after being shaved and painted yellow, was 
crowned with a tall hat adorned with gorgeous plumes. 
Thus attired the body was seated in an arm chair under 
an umbrella, with a whip and walking stick in both 
hands, and a mirror in front to delight the spirit of the 
dead man with the reflection of all his glory. The 



258 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

natives danced in ecstasy at the sight. But the danger 
was not yet past. 

"This is going to be a serious business," said Mary 
to Mr. Ovens. 

"We can't leave these prisoners for a moment. I'll 
watch beside them all night, and you'll take the day." 

Then the weary vigil began. The chief had great 
respect for the white Ma, but he was determined to 
honour his son with blood. Mary pled the cause of 
the prisoners and one or two were released. She got 
Mr. Ovens to make a coffin for the dead boy, and two 
missionaries were hurried up from Creek Town with 
a magic lantern to honour the occasion still further. 
To uninstructed eyes it would all have seemed a bit 
of melodramatic farce, but in reality it was a grim 
struggle for human lives. And in the end she won. 
The last of the prisoners was released and only a cow 
was sacrificed at the grave. It was the first chief's 
grave in Okoyong that was not saturated with human 
blood. 

Gradually her sway over the tribe increased till she 
became by common consent an arbiter in all sorts of 
disputes. Sometimes she would sit a whole day quietly 
knitting while she listened to the interminable speeches 
of the opposing parties, so that they might feel that 
they had been allowed to say their utmost before she 
gave her decision. 

V: Essential Justice 

In 1 891 the British Government, which was at that 
time extending its authority into the interior, recog- 
nised her unique position and appointed her Vice-consul 



MARY SLESSOR OF CALABAR 259 

for Okoyong. It was a post for which she had no 
liking, but she accepted it in the belief that she could 
thereby help to tide her people over the difficult transi- 
tion time that lies between savagery and civilised gov- 
ernments. In this she was singularly successful, and 
was able to report in 1894: "No tribe was formerly so 
feared because of their utter disregard of human life, 
but human life is now safe. No chief ever died with- 
out the sacrifice of many lives, but this custom has 
now ceased. Some chiefs, gathered for palaver at our 
house, in commenting on the wonderful change, said, 
'Ma, you white people are God Almighty. No other 
power could have done this/ " 

With the Government officials she was always on 
the best of terms, and one of them has given a lively 
description of her personal appearance and original 
methods of court work. "A little frail old lady with a 
lace shawl over her head and shoulders (that must, I 
think, have been a concession to a stranger, for I never 
saw the thing again), swaying herself in a rocking 
chair and crooning to a black baby in her arms. I re- 
member being struck- — most unreasonably — by her very 
strong Scotch accent. Her welcome was everything 
kind and cordial. I had had a long march, it was an 
appallingly hot day, and she insisted on complete rest 
before we proceeded to the business of the court. It 
was held just below her house. Her compound was 
full of litigants, witnesses, and onlookers, and it was 
impressive to see how deep was the respect with which 
she was treated by them all. She was again in her 
rocking chair, surrounded by several ladies and babies- 
in-waiting, nursing another infant. 



260 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

"I have had a good deal of experience of Nigerian 
courts of various kinds, but have never met one which 
better deserves to be termed a Court of Justice than 
that over which she presided. The litigants emphati- 
cally got justice — sometimes, perhaps, like Shylock, 
"more than they desired" — and it was essential justice, 
unhampered by legal technicalities. One decision I 
recall — I have often wished that I could follow it as a 
precedent. A sued B for a small debt. B admitted 
owing the money, and the Court (that is Ma) ordered 
him to pay accordingly. But she added, *A is a rascal. 
He treats his mother shamefully, he neglects his chil- 
den; only the other day he beat one of his wives, yes 
and she was B's sister too; his farm is a disgrace, he 
seldom washes, and then there was the palaver about 
C's goat a month ago. Oh, of course, A did not steal 
it, he was found not guilty, wasn't he? — all the same 
the affair was never satisfactorily cleared up, and he 
did look unusually sleek just about then. On the other 
hand B was thrifty and respectable. So, before B 
paid the amount due, he would give A a good, sound 
caning in the presence of everybody.' " 

VI : The Chwrch of Christ in Okoyong 

Amid these varied labours and struggles she never 
ceased to plead with loving insistence the claims of 
Christ. She conducted service, taught the children 
in school, and visited the people in their homes. She 
was no organiser, as she herself well knew. Indeed, 
so absorbed in mind was she and so irregular in habits, 
that not infrequently she lost count of the days of the 



MARY SLESSOR OF CALABAR 261 

week, and would be found mending the roof of the 
house on Sunday and holding Church service on Mon- 
day. But one thing never failed, her spirit of pas- 
sionate devotion and unwearying love. 

In 1896, under the compulsion of ill health and yield- 
ing to the urgency of the Committee, she came to Scot- 
land on furlough, bringing with her no fewer than 
four of her black children. Their presence excited 
much interest throughout the Church, but Mary her- 
self, who could face a mob of savages, proved to be the 
most timid of missionary speakers, and absolutely 
refused to proceed if a man appeared in the audience. 
Even the inevitable chairman was only tolerated if he 
kept out of sight. Children, however, white as well 
as black, were her unfailing delight and she made troops 
of little friends everywhere. Speaking of Okoyong 
she expressed her feeling that her work there was 
done. The time, she said, had come for a Church to 
be organised in the district, and for her to move farther 
on into the interior. It was three years before this 
desire was gratified. 

Returning to Calabar she resumed her work in Oko- 
yong. Her last years there were saddened by the loss 
of many of her old friends through an epidemic of 
smallpox. She had removed from Ekenge to a more 
populous centre at Akpap, and she turned her old house 
into a hospital. Many of the people fled and left her 
to fight the disease single-handed. Her own chief, 
Edem, caught the infection and she nursed him till he 
died.. With her own hands she made his coffin, dug 
his grave, and buried him. Next day two missionaries 
arrived from Creek Town and found her completely 



262 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

prostrate. When they visited her house at Ekenge 
they found it full of corpses, and not a living soul near. 
The epidemic passed and her work resumed its 
normal course. At last she had the joy of seeing a 
little church organised, and of sitting at the Lord's 
Table with a company of those whom she had led out 
of heathen darkness into the Christian light. 

VII : The Pioneer of the Enyong Creek 

Meantime big events were happening in Calabar. 
The country to the west of the Cross River had never 
been penetrated by the white man. Powerful cannibal 
tribes occupied the whole of the Ibo country right 
across to the Niger. Little was known of them save 
the ominous fact that they poured down the Enyong 
Creek a continuous stream of slaves to the great slave 
market at Itu. A renowned centre of their barbarous 
worship was at Arochuku, near the head of the Creek, 
where stood a famous idol known as the Long Ju-ju. 
Pilgrims to this shrine were often seized and offered 
in sacrifice or sold as slaves. In 1902 a British force 
marched to Arochuku, subdued the tribes, and demol- 
ished the Ju-ju. Thus a vast and densely populated 
country was thrown open to the Gospel. 

Mary Slessor felt an irresistible call to go in and 
possess the land. "I feel drawn on and on," she said, 
"by the magnetism of this land of dense darkness and 
mysterious weird forest." The Mission Council, rec- 
ognising her exceptional gifts, gave her a roving com- 
mission to pioneer along the line of the Enyong Creek. 
At the age of fifty- four she set out on this new adven- 



MARY SLESSOR OF CALABAR 263 

ture, with the same fervour of spirit as she had entered 
Okoyong, and she was spared for twelve years more 
of toil and achievement. She established herself first 
at Itu, the old slave market at the mouth of the Creek, 
and later, when a medical missionary was settled there, 
she pushed on up country. Now that the power of the 
Ju-ju had been broken the people everywhere were 
crying out for teachers, not from any pure thirst for the 
Gospel but to learn if possible the secret of the white 
man's power. It was impossible to meet the demand, 
and Mary could only travel incessantly along the Creek, 
building rest-huts for herself here and there, and 
endeavouring in this way to keep in touch with the 
seekers after light. Some of her own boys and girls 
from Okoyong gave assistance as teachers. The prog- 
ress made was remarkable and included some of the 
most romantic episodes in her career. 

On one of her earliest voyages down the Creek, a 
canoe shot out from the bank and she was invited to go 
ashore at a place called Akani Obio. Here she was 
taken to the house of a chief, Onoyom by name, who 
told her a touching story of his career. As a boy 
he had once seen a Calabar missionary, and afterwards 
he had heard something of the Christian religion from 
an ex-teacher of the mission who had fallen into sin 
and drunkenness. Now he was eager to build a church 
for his people. In due time the church was built at a 
cost of £300, provided by Onoyom himself, and every 
Sunday morning the Union Jack was hoisted to inti- 
mate to all passers by upon the Creek that no trading 
was to be done that day. When, by and by, the chief 
and his wife were baptised, and Mary sat with them and 



264 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

other converts at the Lord's Table, it was to her "a 
foretaste of heaven/' "Akani Obio," she said, "is 
now linked on to Calvary. I am sure our Lord will 
never keep it from my mother." 

Her remarkable influence over the natives was again 
recognised by the Government, and in 1905 she was 
asked to become President of the native court for the 
district around Itu. She consented to undertake the 
work but refused the salary, which accordingly was 
paid into the Mission funds. She ably discharged 
the duties of her office till 1909, when she was 
compelled by failing strength to resign the post. She 
continued, however, to preserve the happiest relations 
with the young Government officials, who treated their 
Ma with a teasing affection that masked a deep respect. 
She was by common consent the mother of the country, 
and her fame had travelled all along the West Coast. 
Her vitality and youthfulness of spirit were a con- 
tinual marvel. Receiving a goat in a present at a cer- 
tain village she led it home through the forest gaily 
singing, "Mary had a little lamb." She might seem 
eccentric and a bit of a character, but no one who knew 
her could fail to be impressed by her devotion and 
strong sense. 

One of her Government friends having presented her 
with a bicycle she learned to ride, and while laughing 
at herself as a silly old woman on a wheel, she rejoiced 
in the help it gave her in her work. Soon, however, 
she was forbidden to cycle, and in her last years she 
was pushed along in a kind of a light rickshaw when 
too feeble to walk. Much of her work was done by 
canoe, and when she was asked how she was able to 



MARY SLESSOR OF CALABAR 265 

endure the long voyages on the Creek, she confessed 
that she took as big a dose of laudanum as she dared, 
and tried to sleep it out. 

VIII : The Happiest Woman in All the World 

In 191 2 her health seemed completely shattered, and 
her friends arranged for a short holiday in the Canary 
Islands. She consented in the hope that it might restore 
her strength for another year or two of service. It 
was the one perfect holiday of her life, and the story 
of it reads like an idyll. Everybody conspired to sur- 
round her with love and care. She was a child in money 
matters, and her little cash box was passed on from 
Duke Town to the boat, from the boat to the hotel, and 
back again to Duke Town without suffering any 
diminution in its contents. She on her part made 
friends everywhere. A frail little old lady, with a 
face wrinkled like yellow parchment, she endeared her- 
self to all by her simplicity and sympathy and love 
of fun. "What love is wrapped round me," she wrote. 
"It is simply wonderful. I can't say anything else. 
. . . Oh, if I only get another day to work. I hope 
it will be more full of earnestness and blessing than 
the past." 

Shortly after her return to Calabar she received 
from the King the silver cross of the Order of St. 
John of Jerusalem, an honour, as the official letter 
stated, "only conferred on persons professing the 
Christian faith who are eminently distinguished for 
philanthropy." The presentation was made at Duke 
Town, and Mary was glad to escape back to the Creek, 



266 THE MISSIONARY HEROES OF AFRICA 

declaring she could "never face the world again after 
all this blarney." 

Her mind was ever busy with new projects. She 
founded an industrial home for women and girls near 
Itu. She sent urgent appeals home for new workers. 
She pressed the advantage of using motor cars to 
increase the mobility of the missionaries. If they were 
profitable for Government work, she argued, why not 
for Christ's work? For herself, she kept moving inces- 
santly from place to place. until at last she persuaded 
every town of any consequence in the district to receive 
a Christian teacher. On the surrender of Ibam, the last 
town to hold out, she sat down on the floor of her hut, 
and leaning her back against the mud wall, she wrote 
to her friends in Scotland that she was "the happiest 
and most grateful woman in all the world." 

Her long day of service was almost done. The last 
blow was the war.. The news reached her at Odore 
Ikpe, her farthest outstation, five miles beyond the head 
of the Creek, where she was building a house. After 
reading of the invasion of Belgium and the retreat 
from Mons she tried to rise from her seat but found 
she had lost the power. Her native girls put her to 
bed where she lapsed into unconsciousness and seemed 
on the point of death. Thoroughly alarmed the girls 
had her carried the five miles to the Creek and put 
into a canoe which took her down to Itu. Here she 
lay on the ground at the landing place till the doctor 
came down and had her carried to her house. Under 
his care she rallied for a time. But the war was ever 
in her thoughts like a nightmare. "Oh, if I were 
thirty years younger/' she cried, "and if I were a 



MARY SLESSOR OF CALABAR 267 

man !" She persisted in returning to her work, though 
when conducting service in the little church she had 
to remain seated and to lean hard on the communion 
table. This she continued to do by sheer force of will 
even to the last Sunday of her life. 

She died on Wednesday, the 13th of January, 191 5, 
just as the dawn was breaking. Her body was taken 
down the river by loving hands and buried in the 
cemetery on Mission Hill at Duke Town. As the pro- 
cession approached the grave amid the wailing of the 
people, an aged native woman struck the right note. 

"Kutua oh, kutua oh/' she exclaimed. "Do not cry, 
do not cry. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. 
Ma was a great blessing/' It was a simple but perfect 
eulogy. Mary Slessor was indeed a great blessing. 
She gave to heathen Africa a new conception of 
womanhood, and to the world at large an imperishable 
example of Christian devotion. 



THE END 












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